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The Code of Silence Collection: Complete Series
by Tim ShoemakerThis three-book bindup of Tim Shoemaker’s Code of Silence novels takes readers on a series of realistic, nail-biting adventures. In Code of Silence, friends Cooper, Hiro, and Gordy witness a robbery … but when it appears several cops are behind the crime, they aren’t sure who they can trust. Telling the truth could be deadly. But remaining silent could mean an innocent man’s life. In Back Before Dark, the three friends find themselves caught in a trap that leads to Gordy’s abduction. As time goes by without any clues or messages from the kidnapper, Cooper takes things into his own hands. But his choices could place him in even greater danger. Finally, in Below the Surface, what was meant as a peaceful summer vacation turns frightening when Hiro is convinced she witnessed a murder on the lake. Though her instincts are rarely wrong, it appears Hiro may be mistaken this time. Unless the strange accidents happening to Cooper and Gordy are signs of something deeper and more frightening than any of them could imagine.
The Codependency Workbook: Simple Practices for Developing and Maintaining Your Independence (Recovering from Codependency)
by Krystal MazzolaFree yourself from codependency with evidence-based tools and exercisesReclaim your sense of self and reclaim your life. From the author of The Codependency Recovery Plan, this workbook is a comprehensive resource filled with research-based strategies and activities for people seeking to break out of their codependent patterns and reestablish boundaries.Based in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), these practical exercises are designed to help you set goals, challenge and replace negative thoughts, identify your triggers, manage conflicts, and reduce stress. Moments of reflection at the end of each chapter provide helpful summaries as well as motivation to move forward in your recovery.The Codependency Workbook includes:In-depth explanations—Better understand what it means to be codependent, how it relates to addiction, and the ways that CBT can help you address it.Modular approaches—Triage your biggest and most immediate concerns with help from exercises that you can complete in any order.Easy-to-use strategies—Make it simple to find the time and energy to heal using exercises that are both straightforward and don't take long to complete.Break free from codependency and become independent with effective, evidence-based tools.
The Coincidence of Coconut Cake
by Amy E. ReichertYou&’ve Got Mail meets How to Eat a Cupcake in this delightful novel about a talented chef and the food critic who brings down her restaurant—whose chance meeting turns into a delectable romance of mistaken identities.In downtown Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Lou works tirelessly to build her beloved yet struggling French restaurant, Luella&’s, into a success. She cheerfully balances her demanding business and even more demanding fiancé…until the morning she discovers him in the buff—with an intern. Witty yet gruff British transplant Al is keeping himself employed and entertained by writing scathing reviews of local restaurants in the Milwaukee newspaper under a pseudonym. When an anonymous tip sends him to Luella&’s, little does he know he&’s arrived on the worst day of the chef&’s life. The review practically writes itself: underdone fish, scorched sauce, distracted service—he unleashes his worst. The day that Al&’s mean-spirited review of Luella&’s runs, the two cross paths in a pub: Lou drowning her sorrows, and Al celebrating his latest publication. As they chat, Al playfully challenges Lou to show him the best of Milwaukee and she&’s game—but only if they never discuss work, which Al readily agrees to. As they explore the city&’s local delicacies and their mutual attraction, Lou&’s restaurant faces closure, while Al&’s column gains popularity. It&’s only a matter of time before the two fall in love…but when the truth comes out, can Lou overlook the past to chase her future? Set in the lovely, quirky heart of Wisconsin, The Coincidence of Coconut Cake is a charming love story of misunderstandings, mistaken identity, and the power of food to bring two people together.
The Cold Song
by Linn UllmannUllmann's characters are complex and paradoxical: neither fully guilty nor fully innocent Siri Brodal, a chef and restaurant owner, is married to Jon Dreyer, a famous novelist plagued by writer's block. Siri and Jon have two daughters, and together they spend their summers on the coast of Norway, in a mansion belonging to Jenny Brodal, Siri's stylish and unforgiving mother. Siri and Jon's marriage is loving but difficult, and troubled by painful secrets. They have a strained relationship with their elder daughter, Alma, who struggles to find her place in the family constellation. When Milla is hired as a nanny to allow Siri to work her long hours at the restaurant and Jon to supposedly meet the deadline on his book, life in the idyllic summer community takes a dire turn. One rainy July night, Milla disappears without a trace. After her remains are discovered and a suspect is identified, everyone who had any connection with her feels implicated in her tragedy and haunted by what they could have done to prevent it. The Cold Song is a story about telling stories and about how life is continually invented and reinvented.
The Colic Chronicles: A Mother's Survival Guide to Calming Your Baby While Keeping Your Cool
by Tara KompareRoughly one out of five babies in the U. S. suffers from colic, and a mom can feel desperate for answers when her infant wails nonstop. "The Colic Chronicles" offers sweet comfort that she's not alone, not losing her mind, and "not" a bad mother-on the contrary, she should win an award As a mom who survived the colic wars, author Tara Kompare dishes out tried-and-true tips, from how to quell the desire to tackle mommy "know-it-alls" in the checkout line; to mom self-care (e. g. showering and eating in peace); to trying a host of colic-calming strategies. With short, breezy chapters-easy to read during baby's blessed, rare snoozes-this book brims with humor and vital information, sure to be a lifesaver for countless mothers.
The Collaborative Way to Divorce
by Ron Ousky Stuart G. WebbStressing cooperation over confrontation and resolution over revenge, Collaborative divorce is a nationally acclaimed approach that is transforming how couples divide their assets and reinvent their post-divorce relationships, particularly when they share custody of children. Based on the concept that both spouses hire legal representation yet agree to resolve their differences without going to court, Collaborative divorce is generally less expensive and quicker than litigation, gives the couple greater control over the outcome of their divorce, and keeps children out of the controversy. Clear, compassionate, and comprehensive, The Collaborative Way to Divorce offers a dignified, effective solution to one of life?s most difficult situations. .
The Collapse Of Parenting: How We Hurt Our Kids When We Treat Them Like Grown-ups
by Leonard SaxAn acclaimed expert on parenting and childhood development argues that kids today are suffering because their parents are no longer in charge--and explains what parents and educators can do to reverse this trend
The Collapse of Parenting: How We Hurt Our Kids When We Treat Them Like Grown-Ups
by Leonard SaxIn this New York Times bestseller, one of America&’s premier physicians offers a must-read account of the new challenges facing parents today and a program for how we can better prepare our children to navigate the obstacles they face In The Collapse of Parenting, internationally acclaimed author Leonard Sax argues that rising levels of obesity, depression, and anxiety among young people can be traced to parents abdicating their authority. The result is children who have no standard of right and wrong, who lack discipline, and who look to their peers and the Internet for direction. Sax shows how parents must reassert their authority - by limiting time with screens, by encouraging better habits at the dinner table, and by teaching humility and perspective - to renew their relationships with their children. Drawing on nearly thirty years of experience as a family physician and psychologist, along with hundreds of interviews with children, parents, and teachers, Sax offers a blueprint parents can use to help their children thrive in an increasingly complicated world.
The Collected (The Collector)
by K. R. AlexanderFrom horror superstar K.R. Alexander . . . Something horrible happened to Josie--something so horrible she won't talk about it. But when the horror returns for her little sister, Anna, she's back in the battle against a fearsome force that manifests in diabolically deadly dolls.It's been five years since Josie squared off against the evil Beryl and her killer haunted dolls. She hasn't talked about it since, and likes to pretend it didn't happen. Too bad she didn't tell her younger sister, Anna. Because Anna is now the one being drawn in to the evil -- and the evil has some new tricks this time.
The Collected Novels Volume Four: Little Bits of Baby, Facing the Tank, and Tree Surgery for Beginners
by Patrick GaleThree keenly observant and profoundly moving novels from an international bestselling British writer “with heart, soul, and a dark and a naughty wit” (The Observer). “Patrick Gale writes with the understated fluency that is the hallmark of contemporary British fiction, and with the irony that usually accompanies it.” In the three novels collected here, the author of the international bestseller Notes from an Exhibition explores the complexities and ironies of men who have removed themselves from society and painful situations, only to find there’s no escaping their inner turmoil as they follow individual journeys of growth (Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post). Little Bits of Baby: Robin retreated to a remote island monastery after his childhood playmate, Candida, became engaged to Jake, their irresistibly sexy mutual friend. Now Candida is a mother, and she wants her long-lost friend to be the child’s godfather. When he returns to London after his five-year exile, Robin finds the city overwhelming and unfamiliar, but he must fight through his feelings if he is to conclude the unfinished business that originally caused him to flee, and take his place in the world once again. “[A] blithe, original, engaging satire.” —The New York Times Facing the Tank: For American academic Evan Kirby, the English city of Barrowcester—pronounced “Brewster”—is a welcome escape from the US and his brutal divorce. A historian of angels and demons, he has come to explore the cathedral library, but he will find there are no angels in this peculiar little village. From the agnostic bishop and his cannabis cookie–addicted mother to the sex-mad cardinal and the schoolboy with a very unusual relationship with his spaniel, every Barrower has a secret, each more shocking than the last. “[A] ridiculously crazy tour de force . . . If E. F. Benson, Iris Murdoch and Fay Weldon were to produce a story in some mad collusion, the result might be something like this.” —Publishers Weekly Tree Surgery for Beginners: Armistead Maupin has said of Patrick Gale: “There’s really no one he can’t inhabit, understand, and forgive.” That certainly applies to the arborist Lawrence Frost in this epic redemptive novel, who is forced into a journey of self-searching after being accused of killing his wife. Following Frost’s pilgrimage to the Caribbean and eventually to the redwoods of northern California, Gale compassionately chronicles the healing of “a man whose work as a tree surgeon is a metaphor for the growth of his soul and family” (Publishers Weekly). “Playful and wise. In prose of sparkling precision, Gale serves up misadventures—satirical, farcical and tragic.” —The New York Times
The Collected Novels Volume One: Captains and the Kings, Testimony of Two Men, and The Sound of Thunder
by Taylor CaldwellA collection of New York Times–bestselling novels about wealth, power, ambition, and the American Dream from &“a wonderful storyteller&” (A. Scott Berg). From one of the most prolific and widely read authors of the twentieth century, these three mesmerizing turn-of-the-century sagas are now available in one volume. Captains and the Kings: Joseph Francis Xavier Armagh is twelve years old when he gets his first glimpse of the promised land through a dirty porthole on an Irish immigrant ship. In America, his long journey will eventually catapult him from the bigoted, small town of Winfield, Pennsylvania, to the highest echelons of society, and grant him entry into the most elite political circles. And even as misfortune follows the Armagh family like an ancient curse, Joseph will exact his revenge against the uncaring world that once took everything from him, settling for nothing less than the pinnacle of glory: the crowning of his son as the first Catholic president of the United States. Sweeping from the 1850s through the 1920s, this &“spellbinding tale&” was the basis for the 1976 Emmy Award winning television miniseries (Hartford Courant). Testimony of Two Men: Hambledon, Pennsylvania, is still reeling from the sensational murder trial that shattered the peace of the bucolic hamlet less than a year ago. Accused of killing his beautiful young wife, Dr. Jonathan Ferrier hired the best attorneys money could buy and was acquitted. Many townspeople believe he bought his freedom, but Robert Morgen, a young, idealistic doctor, is determined to make up his own mind about the accused&’s innocence or guilt. Is Dr. Ferrier a cold-blooded murderer or a brilliant physician unjustly accused and wrongly maligned? This powerful story touches on faith, religion, and the then-new field of mental health as it explores the evolution of modern medicine. The Sound of Thunder: The son of a socialist German shopkeeper, Edward Enger has one dream: to turn his father&’s modest delicatessen into an empire. With an astute head for business, he achieves success beyond his wildest imagination. Yet something is keeping him from enjoying his extraordinary good fortune. As a boy, Edward thought he would love Margaret Proster all the days of his life . . . until she moved away. Now she is engaged to another man, someone very close to Edward. He vows to take on this latest challenge, along with more mortgages, more debt, and speculative investments on Manhattan&’s burgeoning Wall Street. As his family life begins to unravel, a day of reckoning nears. Soon Edward will have to confront a painful event from his boyhood—a secret buried deep inside that he has never told another living soul.
The Collected Novels Volume One: Jumping the Queue, The Camomile Lawn, and Harnessing Peacocks
by Mary WesleyThree touching contemporary British novels of love, loss, and humor from the international bestselling &“virtuoso&” (The Times, London). Jumping the Queue: This masterpiece of wit, humor, and psychological suspense tells the story of a middle-aged widow who has had it with life. She puts her papers in order, gives away her pet goose, packs a picnic lunch, and heads to the beach to drown herself—only to meet a criminal on the run who has the same idea. Together they set out on adventure in this novel about the hidden costs of love and death. The Camomile Lawn: In this international bestseller, several cousins reunite after forty years to lay one of their own to rest. Together they recall their last carefree summer—and one hot August night in 1939 before the war began. They also reflect on the chaos that followed . . . and how it changed their lives forever. Harnessing Peacocks: Single mother Hebe juggles numerous lovers while working as a manor house chef to pay for her son&’s schooling. When her two worlds collide, a secret from the past leads to a final showdown with a man who&’s in search for his lost love in this captivating and sensual novel.
The Collected Novels Volume One: Notes from an Exhibition and A Perfectly Good Man
by Patrick GaleTwo deeply empathetic novels about families in crisis from an international bestselling British writer &“with heart, soul, and a dark and a naughty wit&” (The Observer). Armistead Maupin says of Patrick Gale: &“Few writers have grasped the twisted dynamics of family the way Gale has. There&’s really no one he can&’t inhabit, understand, and forgive.&” In both the international bestseller, Notes from an Exhibition, and its subtly linked companion novel, A Perfectly Good Man, Gale&’s generous compassion for his characters and their struggles resonates on every page. Notes from an Exhibition: Gifted painter Rachel Kelly lived a life of manic highs and suicidal lows, which took its toll on her family. After a fatal heart attack in her studio in Penzance, Rachel is honored with a retrospective of her work, attracting art lovers but also stirring up emotional turmoil in her husband and four grown children as they try to come to grips with a legacy of secrets and the devastating effects of her bipolar disorder. Told from the multiple viewpoints of the family members—including Rachel—Gale&’s compassionately curated novel evolves into &“an engrossing portrait of a troubled and remarkable character&” (The Mail on Sunday). &“A warm, well-written novel about creativity and the perils of living with the creative spirit.&” —The Times Literary Supplement A Perfectly Good Man: Barnaby Johnson is a good man, a priest in a West Cornwall parish, beloved and trusted by his community. But when twenty-year-old Lenny Barnes, paralyzed in a rugby accident, commits suicide in his presence, the reverberations shake Barnaby, his family, and his neighbors to the core. Those around him then invite Barnaby&’s morally repellent nemesis to attempt to bring about his downfall. With several narrators, this &“warm and humane . . . beautifully written&” novel confronts profound questions of morality, faith, and consequences (The Times, London). &“A moving account of a man&’s struggle with faith, marriage, and morality.&” —The Sunday Times
The Collected Novels Volume One: Property Of, The Drowning Season, Fortune's Daughter, and At Risk
by Alice HoffmanFour acclaimed novels by &“a born storyteller,&” the New York Times–bestselling author of The Rules of Magic and The Dovekeepers (Entertainment Weekly). One of today&’s most beloved authors of lyrical fiction with a touch of magic, Alice Hoffman boasts a body of work that has been praised by readers and critics from the very beginning. This collection includes her first novel, plus three more of her outstanding tales. Property Of: Hoffman&’s debut about teenage girls in mascara and leather and their attraction to local toughs is &“a remarkably envisioned novel, almost mythic in its cadences&” (The New York Times). The Drowning Season intertwines the stories of two women named Esther: a granddaughter, who yearns to escape the Long Island shore and the coldness of the family matriarch; and her grandmother, who fled her abusive parents in Russia decades before. This novel &“casts the spell of all great fairy tales. It takes daily life and transforms it into myth as we watch&” (Chicago Sun-Times). Fortune&’s Daughter: A New York Times Notable Book, this luminous novel of a restless young traveler and a fortune-teller with a secret is a tribute to the profound mysteries of motherhood and childbirth from a writer who, in the words of Amy Tan, &“takes seemingly ordinary lives and lets us see and feel extraordinary things.&” At Risk is a New York Times bestseller that &“will leave few dry eyes&” (Library Journal). In 1980s America, a family copes with their daughter&’s terrifying AIDS diagnosis.
The Collected Novels Volume One: The Life and Loves of a She Devil, The Hearts and Lives of Men, and Praxis
by Fay WeldonWith wicked wit and savage glee, British novelist Fay Weldon “breaks taboos like tape at a marathon” (Los Angeles Times). Perhaps best known for her “small, mad masterpiece,” The Life and Loves of a She Devil, Man Booker Prize nominee Fay Weldon has been writing some of the boldest, funniest satirical novels for over half a century (The Washington Post Book World). In her mid-eighties, she’s penned a scathing sequel, The Death of a She Devil, “a brilliant black comedy” (The Mail on Sunday). Weldon’s take-no-prisoners milieu is often the war between the sexes; she “[points] up the mad underside of our sexual politics with a venomous accuracy for which wit is far too mild a word” (The New York Times Book Review). The Life and Loves of a She DevilA New York Times Notable Book “With infectious, wicked glee,” Weldon tells the story of Ruth, whose husband, Bobbo, has fallen in love with Mary Fisher, a bestselling romance novelist who lives in a high tower overlooking the sea (Chicago Tribune). Mary is petite, dainty, and lovely. Ruth is not. When Bobbo moves out, Ruth decides to orchestrate an elaborate and masterful revenge. Weldon’s “powerfully funny and oddly powerful” novel was made into a film with Meryl Streep and Roseanne Barr (The Washington Post Book World). “A scintillating, mind-boggling, vicarious thrill for any reader who has ever fantasized dishing out retribution for one wrong or another.” —The New York Times Book Review The Hearts and Lives of Men: In Weldon’s “imaginative work of Dickensian scope” set in 1960s London, Clifford Wexford and Helen Lally meet at a party and fall passionately in love (Los Angeles Times). But their baby, Nell, isn’t even a year old when their marriage unravels. Divorce quickly follows, and so begins a battle for Nell’s care and affection. Helen remarries; Clifford has affairs—and something quite remarkable happens to little Nell, as an ill-conceived kidnapping plot sets her on a series of picaresque adventures in this modern-day fairy tale. “Wry, gutsy and loaded with fun.” —The New York Times PraxisShortlisted for the Man Booker Prize Praxis Duveen is a survivor. At five years old, in 1920s England, she is still innocent, the product of an unstable mother and a father who abandoned her and Hypatia, her half-crazy sister. As the decades fly by, Praxis experiences many incarnations, from prostitute to rape victim, wife to adulteress, and eventually becomes the accidental leader of an international women’s movement. Now, from her dingy basement apartment where she’s attempting to write a memoir, Praxis recounts her remarkable journey—peppered with more than a few detours along the way. “Weldon’s most directly feminist novel . . . A narrative that convinces, horrifies, and entertains.” —Library Journal
The Collected Novels Volume One: This Sporting Life and Flight into Camden
by David StoreyTwo award-winning novels—including This Sporting Life—from the Man Booker Prize–winning British novelist and &“an absorbing writer&” (The New Yorker). The son of a coal miner who went on to play professionally in the rugby league, British author David Storey drew heavily on his own background for his debut novel, This Sporting Life, which won the 1960 Macmillan Fiction Award. &“The leading novelist of his generation,&” Storey was also a playwright and screenwriter, going on to win the Man Booker Prize for his novel, Saville (The Daily Telegraph). The collected fiction gathered here includes This Sporting Life as well as his second novel, focusing on a female protagonist, also from a Yorkshire coal mining town. This Sporting Life: In a bleak Yorkshire mining town, an aggressive rugby league footballer finds fame, fortune, and countless women but cannot outrun the emptiness he feels inside. Storey also wrote the screenplay based on his &“impressive first novel&” for the award-winning film starring Richard Harris (The New York Times). &“Classic . . . a revelation . . . Skeptical, belligerent, and acidly ironical.&” —Edmund White, The Paris Review Flight Into Camden: Margaret, a miner&’s daughter, leaves her oppressive family in Yorkshire, hoping to make a new life in London with a married teacher in this &“love story written with seriousness and intensity&” (The Observer). Storey&’s second novel, told in Margaret&’s voice, won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and the Somerset Maugham Award. &“A tour de force of domestic oppression . . . Rises on occasions to a pitch of precise beauty which I can only . . . describe as poetry.&” —The Guardian
The Collected Novels Volume Three: Ease, The Aerodynamics of Pork, and Kansas in August
by Patrick GaleThree irreverent comic novels from an international bestselling British writer “with heart, soul, and a dark and a naughty wit” (The Observer). “A clever, original writer with a sharp eye for social comedy and an equally sharp ear for dialogue,” Patrick Gale is able to find the comic irony as well as the all-too-human drama in our foibles. In his first three novels, collected here, he mines a rich vein of comedy in characters such as a playwright who reinvents herself, a teenage violin prodigy eager to meet the man of his dreams, a lesbian police inspector rediscovering her libido, and a teacher who surprises himself with an irrepressible paternal instinct (The Washington Post). Ease: An award-winning but world-weary playwright, Domina Tey takes on a fake name and a bedsit in Bayswater, then one of London’s seedier districts, to find her muse again. Soon she finds herself getting involved with her fellow tenants: a wannabe actress, a gay Frenchman, and a devout member of the local Greek Orthodox Church. They show Domina a side of life she’s never seen before, and she learns that before she can start writing again, she will have to live. “Captivating . . . a novel that pleads to be read at a single sitting.” —Publishers Weekly The Aerodynamics of Pork: Gale’s “sad, funny, deeply searching” debut novel follows two parallel love stories that ultimately intersect in a surprising way: Fifteen-year-old violin prodigy Seth Peake is secretly attracted to men and looking for romance at a summer music festival in Cornwall, and closeted lesbian police inspector Maude Faithe is trying to solve a mysterious series of burglaries that target astrologists in London, even as she engages in her own star-crossed infatuation (Publishers Weekly). “Gale’s concoction is irresistible: modern relationships with period charm. I couldn’t have liked it more.” —Armistead Maupin Kansas in August: Stood up by his lover, Rufus, on his birthday, unhappy English teacher Hilary Metcalfe discovers a frightened, abandoned baby boy in a London tube station. Drunk and lonely, Hilary brings the baby home to his Shepherd’s Bush flat, and soon finds he cannot live without the child. As Rufus falls into a romantic encounter with, of all people, Hilary’s sister, the three are caught in a bizarre love triangle—with a baby in the middle. “The bawdy narrative strands are cleverly woven together with witty and urbane dialogue and piquant characterization, so that the reader is thoroughly absorbed in this irreverent tour de force.” —Publishers Weekly
The Collected Novels Volume Three: Thin-Ice Skater, As It Happened, and Present Times
by David StoreyThree thought-provoking novels from the Man Booker Prize–winning British novelist of This Sporting Life and “an absorbing writer” (The New Yorker). The son of a coal miner who went on to play professionally in the rugby league, British author David Storey drew heavily on his own background for his debut novel, This Sporting Life, which won the 1960 Macmillan Fiction Award and was made into a film with Richard Harris. “The leading novelist of his generation,” Storey was also a playwright and screenwriter, going on to win the Man Booker Prize for his novel, Saville (The Daily Telegraph). Collected here, Storey’s characters range from a seventeen-year-old compulsive note writer to a seventy-year-old suicidal art historian and a middle-aged sports columnist, but they all share a common trait: a profound questioning of life’s meaning. Thin-Ice Skater: An angst-ridden seventeen-year-old who shares intimate details of his life in the form of memos written to himself, Rick Audlin first goes to live with his much-older film producer half-brother, Gerry, whose second wife, Martha, a former movie star, has been committed to a mental institution. When Gerry has to go abroad, Rick moves in with his long-estranged other half-brother, James, a failed crime novelist, and is seduced by Clare, James’s wife. But Rick begins to realize something else is going on—something that will eventually lead him to a shattering secret in his family. As It Happened: After a failed suicide attempt in front of a moving train, seventy-year-old art historian and professor emeritus Matthew Maddox attends art therapy classes, hoping to find meaning in his life. Although he feels isolated, Maddox does have his champions. Simone, his lover and partner, is returning from an analysts’ conference in Vienna. There is also his former mentor, whose wartime past fascinates Maddox; his older sister, Sarah; and his younger brother, Paul—and Eric Taylor, once his most promising student, now a convicted murderer, in whom Maddox sees echoes of his own life. “A novel packed with argument and written with a close attention to the significance of gesture, the thing seen, the sound heard, the thought apprehended.” —The Scotsman Present Times: Former playwright Frank Attercliffe cowrites a sports column about football and lives with his children in relative peace—until the night his wife, who left him three years ago for a car dealer, returns home and announces she wants to move back in. Just one catch—she wants Frank to move out. “I enjoyed this book for its savagery, its stoically enduring hero, its taut, explosive dialogue.” —The Sunday Telegraph
The Collected Novels Volume Two: A Serious Man, A Temporary Life, and A Prodigal Child
by David StoreyThree powerful novels from the Man Booker Prize–winning British novelist of This Sporting Life and “an absorbing writer” (The New Yorker). The son of a coal miner who went on to play professionally in the rugby league, British author David Storey drew heavily on his own background for his debut novel, This Sporting Life, which won the 1960 Macmillan Fiction Award and was made into a film with Richard Harris. “The leading novelist of his generation,” Storey was also a playwright and screenwriter, going on to win the Man Booker Prize for his novel, Saville (The Daily Telegraph). The collected fiction gathered here explores madness, romantic obsession, adolescent yearning, and class divisions with Storey’s characteristic “understanding of people and society” (The Times Literary Supplement). A Serious Man: Richard Fenchurch has had a long, successful career as a playwright, painter, and novelist. But at sixty-five, he is coming apart at the seams. His married daughter, Harriet, moves him from his squalid London flat to his ancestral mansion. Home again with ghosts all around, Fenchurch ruminates on past loves and choices, while struggling to maintain his freedom and sanity. “This spellbinding giant of a book is dashing, hectic, complex, sometimes almost wickedly aimless and terrifying. It reads like a wild animal flexing its muscles. . . . An electrifying success.” —The Mail on Sunday A Temporary Life: As his wife wastes away in a hospital, sinking deeper and deeper into a terrifying and incomprehensible madness, Colin Freestone tries to make sense of what his life has become. Having moved to Yvonne’s hometown in northern England for her psychiatric care, he teaches art at a second-rate college headed by a nutrition-crazed dean. He makes friends and meets women, but nothing can distract him from the fact that his wife is slowly dying and he is powerless to stop it. “A triumph . . . bitter, enriching.” —The New York Times A Prodigal Child: Desperate to escape the poverty of his family and his drunken father who works as a farmhand, Bryan goes to live with the childless Fay Corrigan at her posh home in town during the week, while attending a prep school that she pays for. But Bryan soon feels a growing chasm between his new life and the world he left behind. And his mounting jealous-erotic obsession with the much-older Fay leads to actions—and consequences—that will reverberate for years to come. “Quiet but telling drama, intense observation.” —Penelope Lively
The Collected Novels Volume Two: A Sweet Obscurity and The Cat Sanctuary
by Patrick GaleTwo family novels from an international bestselling British writer “with heart, soul, and a dark and a naughty wit” (The Observer). Armistead Maupin says of Patrick Gale: “Few writers have grasped the twisted dynamics of family the way Gale has. There’s really no one he can’t inhabit, understand, and forgive.” In both novels presented in this collection, Gale explores the complex dynamics of family with dead-on observation and generous compassion. A Sweet Obscurity: Dido, a nine-year-old orphan, lives with her aunt Eliza, who adopted the girl after her mother died. A depressed musicologist unable to balance her brilliant academic career with motherhood, Eliza ruined her marriage with an affair. Her estranged husband, Giles, is an opera singer whose girlfriend, Julia, uncovers a shocking secret while concealing one of her own. As Dido shuttles between Eliza’s squalid flat and Giles’s elegant townhouse, she acts as both tactful diplomat and insightful analyst to the adults who act like children. Until something happens that powerfully impacts her young life. “This is arguably Gale’s most questioning, troublesome work. It amuses, startles and occasionally bewilders. A Sweet Obscurity is worth every minute of your time.” —The Independent The Cat Sanctuary: Deborah Curtis’s husband, a diplomat in an African principality, was killed by a car bomb, and months later she is still recovering from the assassination. Her estranged sister Judith, an author who lives with her American lover, Joanna, in Cornwall, insists Deborah come to her farmhouse to grieve in peace. But unresolved wounds between the sisters bleed into the present, and a history of abuse comes to light. Forced to confront painful memories, the women’s secrets and lies collide in a shattering climax. “A dark tale of loss, sex and mistrust . . . A sensitive, thoughtful novel with a conclusion that is both unsettling and consistent.” —Time Out London
The Collected Novels Volume Two: Letters to Alice, Worst Fears, and The Heart of the Country
by Fay WeldonThree novels from the “prolific and provocative” British satirist: from the joy of inspiration to the shock of betrayal and the pleasure of vengeance (Time Out). Perhaps best known for her “small, mad masterpiece,” The Life and Loves of a She Devil, Man Booker Prize nominee Fay Weldon has been writing some of the boldest, funniest satirical novels for over half a century (The Washington Post Book World). In her mid-eighties, she’s penned a scathing sequel, The Death of a She Devil, “a brilliant black comedy” (The Mail on Sunday). The three volumes collected here—from an epistolary novel inspired by Jane Austen to a widow’s discovery of her husband’s betrayal and a tale of abandonment that twists into comeuppance—all prove Weldon’s wit and insights into the human condition to be as sharp as ever. Letters to Alice: With the dire warning, “You must read, Alice, before it’s too late,” Aunt Fay implores her niece to immerse herself in the works of enduring authors. Taking its inspiration from Jane Austen’s relationship with her niece, Weldon’s epistolary novel explores the literary life, as lived by both Austen and eighteen-year-old Alice, as she struggles with her own writing, school, parents, romance, ambition, and spiky green hair. “Wise, sharp, informative . . . shrewd and funny.” —The Times Literary Supplement Worst FearsA New York Times Notable Book A darling of the London theater world, Alexandra Ludd is playing Nora in Ibsen’s A Doll’s House when her husband, Ned, former theater critic and stay-at-home father to their young son, Sascha, dies of an apparent heart attack. But when Alexandra returns to their country home, her grief begins to give way to suspicion. Ned didn’t keel over in the dining room, as her good friends told her. He died in their bed—and he wasn’t alone. What’s a widow to do? “This splendid and spiteful novel shows Fay Weldon to be in as fine form as ever.” —The Philadelphia Inquirer The Heart of the Country: When her husband kisses her and their children goodbye, departs for the office, and never returns, Natalie blames herself. Perhaps if she hadn’t been cheating on him every Tuesday and Thursday, he wouldn’t have left her for his secretary, a local beauty queen. Penniless and soon homeless, Natalie finds herself navigating the heartless labyrinth of the state welfare system. There, she meets Sonia, who offers to shelter Natalie and her children. But Sonia has her own agenda (hint: she’s narrating from a mental institution) that will culminate in a monstrous act of vengeance at the town’s carnival. “Galloping, good, mean fun.” —Kirkus Reviews
The Collected Novels Volume Two: The Foretelling, White Horses, Angel Landing, and Seventh Heaven
by Alice HoffmanFour lyrical and unforgettable tales from one of our “most interesting novelists”—including the New York Times bestseller, Seventh Heaven (Jane Smiley). As Newsweek said of her novel Practical Magic, Alice Hoffman has a “gift for touching ordinary life as if with a wand, to reveal how extraordinary life really is.” Whether in an ancient tribe of female warriors or a sleepy Long Island suburb in the late 1950s, the novels in this collection carve out a piece of that uniquely Hoffmanesque landscape—somewhere between magic and reality, hope and disappointment, the mythical and the mundane—where we are surprised but delighted to rediscover mercy and our humanity. The Foretelling: This young adult New York Times bestseller is the “spare, compelling coming-of-age story” of Rain, born out of sorrow but destined to lead her tribe of Amazon warriors (Kirkus Reviews). Determined to win her mother’s love and take her rightful place as the next queen, Rain becomes a brave and skilled fighter. But the dream of a black horse clouds her future, portending death. Peace, mercy, and love are forbidden words in her people’s language—can Rain teach her sisters to speak in a new tongue before it’s too late? “Alluring . . . Hoffman’s prose eloquently expresses the beliefs and rituals of a lost civilization and offers a sympathetic portrait of a young leader who chooses kindness over cruelty.” —Publishers Weekly White Horses: A “sexually charged . . . almost hypnotic” story about the fairy-tale fantasies of girlhood and the realities of growing up (Publishers Weekly). When Teresa was a little girl, she dreamed of fearless heroes on white horses, the romantic outlaws who populated the stories her mother told her. As an adult, she is irresistibly drawn to her brother, Silver, even as he recklessly pursues a life of crime and danger, captivated by the belief that he may be the night rider of her dreams. “Haunting . . . Alice Hoffman is a daring and able writer.” —The New Yorker Angel Landing: An explosion at a nuclear power plant under construction on Angel Landing changes the lives of Natalie, a therapist; her activist boyfriend, Carter; her eccentric aunt Minnie; and the man who walks into her office with an incredible confession to make. “Alice Hoffman’s writing at its precise and heartbreaking best.” —The Washington Post Seventh Heaven: In this New York Times bestseller, the arrival of a free-thinking divorced mother, Nora Silk, and her two young sons transforms a Long Island suburb during the summer of 1959, in a novel that’s “part American Graffiti, part early Updike” (The New York Times). “Before you know it, you’re half in love with the ordinary people who inhabit this book; you’re seduced by their susceptibility to the remarkable.” —The New Yorker
The Collected Novels Volume Two: The Vacillations of Poppy Carew, Not That Sort of Girl, and Second Fiddle
by Mary WesleyThree touching contemporary British novels of love, romance, and humor from the “high-spirited and inventive” international bestselling author (The Daily Telegraph). The Vacillations of Poppy Carew: Poppy embarks on an exhilarating journey of self-discovery after inheriting her father’s fortune. Traveling from England to Africa and back again, she must choose her future from a band of eccentric suitors. Not That Sort of Girl: Rose falls in love with penniless Mylo but trades love for security by marrying wealthy Ned. Although Rose vows to never leave Ned, Mylo is never far from her thoughts. As time carries on she wonders what she’d risk to be with man she loves . . . Second Fiddle: Forty-ish and fiercely independent, Laura is used to manipulating artistic men, but things change when she meets Claud, a twenty-three-year-old struggling writer. Haunted by a secret that prevents her from committing to a man, Laura must soon confront the one thing she never expected: falling in love.
The Collected Poems of Barbara Guest (Wesleyan Poetry Series)
by Barbara GuestWinner of the SFSU Poetry Center Book Award (2010)One of the most notable members of the New York School—and its best-known woman—Barbara Guest began writing poetry in the 1950s in company that included John Ashbery, Kenneth Koch, Frank O'Hara, and James Schuyler. And from the beginning, her practice placed her at the vanguard of American writing. Guest's poetry, saturated in the visual arts, extended the formal experiments of modernism, and played the abstract qualities of language against its sensuousness and materiality. Now, for the first time, all of her published poems have been brought together in one volume, offering readers and scholars unprecedented access to Guest's remarkable visionary work. This Collected Poems moves from her early New York School years through her more abstract later work, including some final poems never before published. Switching effortlessly from the real to the dreamlike, the observed to the imagined, this is poetry both gentle and piercing—seemingly simple, but truly and beautifully dislocating.
The Collected Regrets of Clover: A Novel
by Mikki BrammerNamed a Best Book of 2023 by NPR"This weird, lovely and sweetly satisfying novel [is] engaging and accessible...Clover’s emergence from a shuttered life is moving enough to elicit tears, and Brammer’s take on death and grieving is profound enough to feel genuinely instructional." ––The New York Times Book ReviewWhat’s the point of giving someone a beautiful death if you can’t give yourself a beautiful life?From the day she watched her kindergarten teacher drop dead during a dramatic telling of Peter Rabbit, Clover Brooks has felt a stronger connection with the dying than she has with the living. After the beloved grandfather who raised her dies alone while she is traveling, Clover becomes a death doula in New York City, dedicating her life to ushering people peacefully through their end-of-life process.Clover spends so much time with the dying that she has no life of her own, until the final wishes of a feisty old woman send Clover on a trip across the country to uncover a forgotten love story––and perhaps, her own happy ending. As she finds herself struggling to navigate the uncharted roads of romance and friendship, Clover is forced to examine what she really wants, and whether she’ll have the courage to go after it. Probing, clever, and hopeful, The Collected Regrets of Clover is perfect for readers of The Midnight Library and Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine as it turns the normally taboo subject of death into a reason to celebrate life.