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The House of Dreams: A Novel
by Kate Lord BrownIn 2000, Sophie Cass, an ambitious journalist, may have finally found her big break. Convinced a celebrated painter in the Hamptons is hiding a dark secret, she sets off to unravel the truth about his past. Her research takes her back decades to 1940, as an international group of artists and intellectuals gather at The House of Dreams, a beautiful villa just outside Marseilles where American journalist Varian Fry and his remarkable team are working to help them escape France. Despite the incredible danger they all face, The House of Dreams is a place of true camaraderie and creativity—and the setting of a love affair that changed the course of the painter’s life forever. But as Sophie digs further into his past, she begins to wonder whether some secrets are better left untouched.Inspired by the real-life heroism of Varian Fry and the volunteers who risked their lives to help save legendary figures like Marc Chagall, Hannah Arendt, and Max Ernst, Kate Lord Brown’s The House of Dreamsis a lyrically told novel of great courage, love, and the power of art.
Capturing the Light: The Birth of Photography, a True Story of Genius and Rivalry
by Roger Watson Helen RappaportAn intimate look at the journeys of two men—a gentleman scientist and a visionary artist—as they struggled to capture the world around them, and in the process invented modern photographyDuring the 1830s, in an atmosphere of intense scientific enquiry fostered by the industrial revolution, two quite different men—one in France, one in England—developed their own dramatically different photographic processes in total ignorance of each other's work. These two lone geniuses—Henry Fox Talbot in the seclusion of his English country estate at Lacock Abbey and Louis Daguerre in the heart of post-revolutionary Paris—through diligence, disappointment and sheer hard work overcame extraordinary odds to achieve the one thing man had for centuries been trying to do—to solve the ancient puzzle of how to capture the light and in so doing make nature 'paint its own portrait'. With the creation of their two radically different processes—the Daguerreotype and the Talbotype—these two giants of early photography changed the world and how we see it. Drawing on a wide range of original, contemporary sources and featuring plates in colour, sepia and black and white, many of them rare or previously unseen, Capturing the Light by Roger Watson and Helen Rappaport charts an extraordinary tale of genius, rivalry and human resourcefulness in the quest to produce the world's first photograph.
Chose the Wrong Guy, Gave Him the Wrong Finger: A Novel
by Beth HarbisonFrom Beth Harbison, the New York Times bestselling author of When in Doubt, Add Butter and Shoe Addicts Anonymous, comes Chose the Wrong Guy, Gave Him the Wrong Finger, a delightful new novel that will make you look at second chances in a whole new way.Ten years ago, Quinn Barton was on her way to the altar to marry Burke Morrison, her high school sweetheart, when something derailed her. Rather, someone derailed her—the Best Man who at the last minute begged her to reconsider the marriage. He told her that Burke had been cheating on her. For a long time. Quinn, stunned, hurt, and confused, struggled with the obligation of fulfilling her guests' expectations—providing a wedding—and running for her life.She chose running. With the Best Man. Who happened to be Burke's brother, Frank.That relationship didn't work either. How could it, when Quinn had been engaged to, in love with, Frank's brother? Quinn opted for neither, and, instead, spends the next seventeen years working in her family's Middleburg, Virginia, bridal shop, Talk of the Gown, where she subconsciously does penance for the disservice she did to marriage.But when the two men return to town for another wedding, old anger, hurt, and passion resurface. Just because you've traded the good guy for the bad guy for no guy doesn't mean you have to stay away from love for the rest of your life, does it? Told with Beth Harbison's flair for humor and heart, Chose the Wrong Guy will keep you guessing and make you believe in the possibilities of love.
The Hydra Head
by Carlos FuentesCarlos Fuentes, Mexico's leading novelist, author of The Old Gringo, Terra Nostra and The Death of Artemio Cruz, has produced what is probably the first Third World spy thriller, an action-filled, quick-paced novel of intrigue as contemporary as a headline. The Hydra Head has a constant political reality as backdrop: the permanent tension in the Middle East and the vast new oil resources of Mexico, the setting for a brilliant attempt to portray the diversity of one man's experience.
I Left It on the Mountain: A Memoir
by Kevin SessumsOn his 53rd birthday, Kevin Sessums woke up in his L.A. hotel room wondering how he would get through his scheduled interview with Hugh Jackman. For years he had interviewed the bright lights: Madonna, Courtney Love, Jessica Lange, and all the other usual suspects; but, Kevin knew that his rapidly unraveling life was as shallow as the hotel's hip furniture and he was hanging on by his fingertips. In I Left It on the Mountain, Sessums chronicles his early days in NY as an actor, his years working for Andy Warhol at Interview and Tina Brown at Vanity Fair, countless nights of anonymous sex, his HIV Positive diagnosis and his descent into addiction. It's also the chronicle of one man's spiritual redemption found while climbing to the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro, walking the Camino de Santiago de Compostelo and trudging across the cold, lonely winter beaches of Provincetown. Peopled with the famous like Daniel Radcliffe and Diane Sawyer as well as anonymous companions corporeal and otherwise whom he met while mountain climbing and hiking, I Left It on the Mountain is the story of one man's fall and rebirth, the next moving chapter in Kevin Sessums' extraordinary life that takes him from the high to the low and back again. For readers who loved Mississippi Sissy and want to know what happened to that tenacious little boy with the baseball mitt, I Left It On the Mountain is the sometimes very dark, but ultimately hopeful answer.
Frank: A Life In Politics From The Great Society To Same-sex Marriage
by Barney FrankHow did a disheveled, intellectually combative gay Jew with a thick accent become one of the most effective (and funniest) politicians of our time?Growing up in Bayonne, New Jersey, the fourteen-year-old Barney Frank made two vital discoveries about himself: he was attracted to government, and to men. He resolved to make a career out of the first attraction and to keep the second a secret. Now, fifty years later, his sexual orientation is widely accepted, while his belief in government is embattled. Frank: A Life in Politics from the Great Society to Same-Sex Marriage is one man's account of the country's transformation—and the tale of a truly momentous career. Many Americans recall Frank's lacerating wit, whether it was directed at the Clinton impeachment ("What did the president touch, and when did he touch it?") or the pro-life movement (some people believe "life begins at conception and ends at birth"). But the contours of his private and public lives are less well-known. For more than four decades, he was at the center of the struggle for personal freedom and economic fairness. From the battle over AIDS funding in the 1980s to the debates over "big government" during the Clinton years to the 2008 financial crisis, the congressman from Massachusetts played a key role. In 2010, he coauthored the most far-reaching and controversial Wall Street reform bill since the era of the Great Depression, and helped bring about the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell. In this feisty and often moving memoir, Frank candidly discusses the satisfactions, fears, and grudges that come with elected office. He recalls the emotional toll of living in the closet and how his public crusade against homophobia conflicted with his private accommodation of it. He discusses his painful quarrels with allies; his friendships with public figures, from Tip O'Neill to Sonny Bono; and how he found love with his husband, Jim Ready, becoming the first sitting member of Congress to enter a same-sex marriage. He also demonstrates how he used his rhetorical skills to expose his opponents' hypocrisies and delusions. Through it all, he expertly analyzes the gifts a successful politician must bring to the job, and how even Congress can be made to work. Frank is the story of an extraordinary political life, an original argument for how to rebuild trust in government, and a guide to how political change really happens—composed by a master of the art.
It's Like Candy: An Urban Novel
by Erick S. GrayBeautiful River joins a stick-up crew, but she doesn't know that Big Red and Twinkie have a secret that even she's not in on. When she falls in love with Eric, one of her victims, all she wants is to find her baby sister, and settle down with her new love. But River soon becomes a prisoner of her dangerous world. And escaping it may cost her more than her life.By the time she turns sixteen, Starr is working for a pimp and turning tricks daily. But when an assault by one of her "dates" lands her in the hospital, Starr meets a woman who wants to help her change her life. Starr's heart is too hardened to believe in second chances, but soon she begins to long for more than selling her body just so she can survive. However the game does not give up its players so easily. Enter Eric's cousin, Yung Slim, fresh out of jail after seven years. He's looking to reclaim the streets and take care of some old grudges. When Yung Slim goes to battle, Eric—torn between his love for River, his ties to his cousin, and the lure of the streets—gets in too deep. When the war breaks out on the battlefield of the streets, who will be left standing?
Orientation and Other Stories: And Other Stories
by Daniel OrozcoBreakfast's boiled egg, the overhead hum of fluorescent lights, the midmorning coffee break—daily routines keep the world running. But when people are pushed—by a coworker's taunt, a face-to-face encounter with a woman in free fall from a bridge—cracks appear, revealing alienation, casual cruelty, madness, and above all a simultaneous hunger for and fear of the unknown. Daniel Orozco leads the reader through the hidden lives and moral philosophies of bridge painters, men housebound by obesity, office temps, and warehouse workers. He reveals the secret pleasures of late-night supermarket trips for cookie binges, exceptional data entry, and an exiled dictator's occasional piss on the U.S. embassy. A love affair blooms between two officers in the impartially worded pages of a police blotter; a new employee's first-day office tour includes descriptions of other workers' most private thoughts and actions; during an earthquake, the consciousness of the entire state of California shakes free for examination. Orientation introduces a writer at the height of his powers, whose work surely invites us to reassess the landscape of American fiction.Orientation is a Kirkus Reviews Best of 2011 Short Story Collections title.
The Ballad of Dorothy Wordsworth: A Life
by Frances WilsonDescribed by the writer and opium addict Thomas De Quincey as "the very wildest . . . person I have ever known," DorothyWordsworth was neither the self-effacing spinster nor the sacrificial saint of common telling. A brilliant stylist in her own right, Dorothy was at the center of the Romantic movement of the early nineteenth century. She was her brother William Wordsworth's inspiration, aide, and most valued reader, and a friend to Coleridge; both borrowed from her observations of the world for their own poems.William wrote of her, "She gave me eyes, she gave me ears."In order to remain at her brother's side, Dorothy sacrificed both marriage and comfort, jealously guarding their close-knit domesticity—one marked by a startling freedom from social convention. In the famed Grasmere Journals, Dorothy kept a record of this idyllic life together. The tale that unfolds through her brief, electric entries reveals an intense bond between brother and sister, culminating in Dorothy's dramatic collapse on the day of William's wedding to their childhood friend Mary Hutchinson. Dorothy lived out the rest of her years with her brother and Mary. The woman who strode the hills in all hours and all weathers would eventually retreat into the house for the last three decades of her life.In this succinct, arresting biography, Frances Wilson reveals Dorothy in all her complexity. From the coiled tension of Dorothy's journals, she unleashes the rich emotional life of a woman determined to live on her own terms, and honors her impact on the key figures of Romanticism.
Mad Women: The Other Side of Life on Madison Avenue in the '60s and Beyond
by Jane Maas"Breezy and salty." -The New York Times"Hilarious! Honest, intimate, this book tells it as it was." -Mary Wells Lawrence, author of A Big Life (In Advertising) and founding president of Wells Rich Greene "Breezy and engaging [though] ...The chief value of Mad Women is the witness it bears for younger women about the snobbery and sexism their mothers and grandmothers endured as the price of entry into mid-century American professional life." -The Boston Globe"A real-life Peggy Olson, right out of Mad Men." -Shelly Lazarus, Chairman, Ogilvy & MatherWhat was it like to be an advertising woman on Madison Avenue in the 60s and 70s - that Mad Men era of casual sex and professional serfdom? A real-life Peggy Olson reveals it all in this immensely entertaining and bittersweet memoir.Mad Women is a tell-all account of life in the New York advertising world by Jane Maas, a copywriter who succeeded in the primarily male jungle depicted in the hit show Mad Men. Fans of the show are dying to know how accurate it is: was there really that much sex at the office? Were there really three-martini lunches? Were women really second-class citizens? Jane Maas says the answer to all three questions is unequivocally "yes." Her book, based on her own experiences and countless interviews with her peers, gives the full stories, from the junior account man whose wife almost left him when she found the copy of Screw magazine he'd used to find "a date" for a client, to the Ogilvy & Mather's annual Boat Ride, a sex-and-booze filled orgy, from which it was said no virgin ever returned intact. Wickedly funny and full of juicy inside information, Mad Women also tackles some of the tougher issues of the era, such as unequal pay, rampant, jaw-dropping sexism, and the difficult choice many women faced between motherhood and their careers.
The Hurt Artist: My Journey from Suicidal Junkie to Ironman
by Shane Niemeyer Gary BrozekA gritty memoir that chronicles the author's transformation from a homeless junkie who tried to hang himself in prison to a triathlete competing at the Ironman World Championship.With troubles beginning as early as childhood, the trajectory of Shane Niemeyer's life seemed to have only one direction: down. His struggles with heroin addiction led him to jail, and he eventually hit rock bottom. Soon, his two pack a day cigarette habit was the healthiest thing he did. One dark night in jail, his suicide attempt failed. What happened next transcends the term recovery.The Hurt Artist is the searing yet luminous travelogue of Shane's powerful journey from suicidal addict to Ironman. He vividly depicts the landscape of pain in which he's lived his life—emotional and physical pain inflicted upon him and that he inflicts upon himself, pain that pulls him down, and, in detailing his training, the pain he harnesses to lift himself up. Ultimately, Shane's story is one of redemption and triumph, a lesson in the value of second chances and a clear reminder that nobody, regardless of how seemingly desperate their circumstances, is beyond the reach of salvation.From inmate #71768 to Ironman Triathlon World Championship competitor #1419, Shane paints a stirring self-portrait in this hilarious, horrifying, and hopeful account that is sure to hook readers of edgy sports biographies.
Lawyer for the Dog: A Novel (The Sally Baynard Novels #1)
by Lee RobinsonOne of the sharpest attorneys in Charleston, S.C., Sally Baynard isn't your typical southern belle. She's certainly not what her mother hoped she'd grow up to be, especially since she divorced her husband, Family Court Judge Joe Baynard, and his historic family with their historic wealth and historic houses. Maybe Sally was never going to be a proper society lady, but her success as a public defender and family lawyer have been enough for her. She's represented murderers, burglars, drug dealers and lately has taken on some of the thorniest divorces, all cases closed with her Sally Bright Baynard wit, charm and brains. Or have they? One case she's never successfully closed is her marriage. And when Judge Joe assigns her to one of his divorce cases by appointing her as the Lawyer for the Dog -- Sherman, a miniature schnauzer-- she's forced into close quarters with him again. Juggling the needs of the dog, the angry owners, her amorous but uncommunicative ex-husband, her aging, Alzheimer's-ridden mother, and the expectations of the court is more than Sally could have imagined. And as rascally Sherman digs his way into Sally's heart, he brings along his charming vet Tony, a man who makes Sally question her views on love and marriage.
The Great Scot: A Novel of Robert the Bruce, Scotland's Legendary Warrior King
by Duncan A. BruceRobert the Bruce was Scotland's greatest King ever. The Bruce, as he was known, was crowned King of Scots in 1306, a time when the ancient kingdom of Scotland was under harsh and illegal English occupation. As soon as King Robert began his reign, his army was treacherously attacked at Methven, resulting in a calamitous defeat for the Scots which forced the Bruce into hiding. Yet, steadily between 1307 and 1313 King Robert won battle after battle, shunning pitched medieval clashes, and fighting as a guerilla force, a form of warfare which he, perhaps, invented.The war peaked in 1314 when the Bruce faced a formidable English invasion. With brilliant tactics and resolute bravery the vastly outnumbered Scots defeated and routed the knights, archers, and foot soldiers of mighty England at the Battle of Bannockburn. And that's only the first part of this epic tale of the Bruce's long and event-filled life.The Great Scot is a novel filled with valor, treachery, passionate love, journeys great and small, and people of every rank and situation-all from the pages of Scottish history.
The Spanish Queen: A Novel of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon
by Carolly EricksonFrom the New York Times bestselling author of The Last Wife of Henry VIII comes a powerful and moving novel about Catherine of Aragon, Henry VIII's first wife and mother of Mary IWhen young Catherine of Aragon, proud daughter of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, is sent to England to marry the weak Prince Arthur, she is unprepared for all that awaits her: early widowhood, the challenge of warfare with the invading Scots, and the ultimately futile attempt to provide the realm with a prince to secure the succession. She marries Arthur's energetic, athletic brother Henry, only to encounter fresh obstacles, chief among them Henry's infatuation with the alluring but wayward Anne Boleyn.In The Spanish Queen, bestselling novelist Carolly Erickson allows the strong-willed, redoubtable Queen Catherine to tell her own story—a tale that carries her from the scented gardens of Grenada to the craggy mountains of Wales to the conflict-ridden Tudor court. Surrounded by strong partisans among the English, and with the might of Spanish and imperial arms to defend her, Catherine soldiers on, until her union with King Henry is severed and she finds herself discarded—and tempted to take the most daring step of her life.Carolly Erickson's historical entertainments continue to succeed in creating a unique blend of historical authenticity and page-turning drama.
Aristocrats: Power, Grace, and Decadence
by Lawrence JamesAristocracy means "rule by the best." For nine hundred years, the British aristocracy considered itself ideally qualified to rule others, make laws, and guide the nation. Its virtues lay in its collective wisdom, its attachment to chivalric codes, and its sense of public duty. It evolved from a medieval warrior caste into a self-assured and sophisticated elite, which made itself the champion of popular liberty: It forced King John to sign the Magna Carta and later used its power and wealth to depose a succession of tyrannical kings from Richard II to James II. Britain's liberties and constitution were the result of aristocratic bloody-mindedness and courage.Aristocrats traces the history of this remarkable supremacy. It is a story of civil wars, conquests, intrigue, chicanery, and extremes of selflessness and greed. The aristocracy survived and, in the age of the great house and the Grand Tour, governed the first industrial nation while a knot of noblemen ruled its growing empire. Under pressure from below, this political power was slowly relinquished and then shared. Yet democratic Britain retained its aristocracy: Churchill, himself the grandson of a duke, presided over a wartime cabinet that contained six hereditary peers.Lawrence James illuminates the culture of this singular caste, shows how its infatuation with classical art has forged England's heritage, how its love of sport has shaped the nation's pastimes and values, and how its scandals have entertained its public.Impeccably researched, balanced, and brilliantly told, Aristocrats is an enthralling story of survival, a stunning history of wealth, power, and influence.
Trophy Son: A Novel
by Douglas Brunt"Trophy Son brings Conroy's The Great Santini and Malamud's The Natural into the present day...A terrific book." -Harlan CobenPrivate lessons. Professional coaches. Specialized camps for sports, math, music, and other fields. Today’s children are pushed to achieve excellence—or else. But at what cost? New York Times bestselling author Douglas Brunt’s third novel, Trophy Son, tells the story of a tennis prodigy, from young childhood to the finals of the US Open, Wimbledon, and other tournaments around the world. Growing up in the wealthy suburbs of Philadelphia, Anton Stratis is groomed to be one thing only: the #1 tennis player in the world. Trained relentlessly by his obsessive father, a former athlete who plans every minute of his son’s life, Anton both aspires to greatness and resents its all-consuming demands. Lonely and isolated—removed from school and socialization to focus on tennis—Anton explodes from nowhere onto the professional scene and soon becomes one of the top-ranked players in the world, with a coach, a trainer, and an entourage.But as Anton struggles to find a balance between stardom and family, he begins to make compromises—first with himself, then with his health, and finally with the rules of tennis, a mix that will threaten to destroy everything he has worked for. Trophy Son offers an inside look at the dangers of extraordinary pressure to achieve, whether in sports or any field, through the eyes of a young man defying his parents’ ambitions as he seeks a life of his own.
The Last Ghost Dancer: A Novel
by Tony Bender"This is a remarkable coming-of-age story and spiritual journey with as much between the lines as in them. Sometimes wry, always thoughtful, the characters seem to live and breathe, and you won't soon forget them."—Senator Byron Dorgan The Last Ghost Dancer is more than a coming-of-age fable, more than the wry memoirs of a spiritual search. It is the story of a remarkable summer in a remarkable west river town. It is a commentary on the depth and breadth of friendships forged, of lovers lost, and the realization that it is the journey that is of importance, and not so much the destination. Looking back, as old men do, it's hard to imagine it really happened. But it did. One wise teacher, one perfect girl, one harrowing summer, can set the course of a lifetime. Meet Bones, the wry, funny, ever-observant, thoughtful and hapless narrator, a grease monkey at the only gas station in Pale Butte, whose most recent claim to fame is dropping an Edsel off the hoist. Now, some sixty years later, Bones, a dreamer of apocalyptic dreams, reflects on miracles small and large and his spiritual discovery that marked the summer of 1977.
Little Boy Blue: A Novel
by Edward BunkerRaised within the confines of a system that has done nothing but provide him with pain, Alex Hamilton's frustration and anger are completely natural--and inherently dangerous.Since his parents split up, Alex has been constantly running from foster homes and institutions, yearning to be with his father, a broken man who cannot give his son the home he desperately needs. The only constant in Alex's life is no-good, criminally-minded peers, who are all too ready to plant illegal ideas in an intelligent mind. Bunker writes, "His unique potential would develop into unique destructiveness."
Border Crossing: A Novel
by Pat BarkerSet in the north of England, Pat Barker's Border Crossing, the basis for the major motion picture The Drowning, portrays a child psychiatrist who rescues a man from drowning one day while walking on a beach in Northumberland. Out walking with his wife, Lauren, beside the river Tyne, Tom Seymour instinctively risks his life to save a young man who they happen to notice just before he jumps into the icy current. Tom's spontaneous act saves the life of someone whose past, as well as his future, he feels a sense of responsibility towards.Recently released from prison, and living under an assumed name, Danny Miller was tried for murder as a ten-year-old on the basis of Tom's testimony, and assessment of him as a psychologist and an expert witness. When Danny asks Tom to help him sort out his life—beginning with his past—Tom is drawn into a lonely, soul-searching reinvestigation of the child murderer's case.
Godard: A Portrait of the Artist at Seventy
by Colin MacCabeAn intimate portrait of the turmoil that spawned the New Wave in French Cinema, and the story of its greatest director, Jean-Luc Godard. Godard's early films revolutionized the language of cinema. Hugely prolific in his first decade--Breathless, Contempt, Pierrot le Fou, Alphaville, and Made in USA are just a handful of the seminal works he directed--Godard introduced filmgoers to the generation of stars associated with the trumpeted sexuality of postwar movies and culture: Brigitte Bardot, Jean Seberg, Jean-Paul Belmondo, and Anna Karina. As the sixties wore on, however, Godard's life was transformed. The Hollywood he had idolized began to disgust him, and in the midst of the socialist ferment in France his second wife introduced him to the activist student left. From 1968 to 1972, Europe's greatest director worked in the service of Maoist politics, and continued thereafter to experiment on the far peripheries of the medium he had transformed. His extraordinary later works are little seen or appreciated, yet he remains one of Europe's most influential artists.Drawing on his own working experience with Godard and his coterie, Colin MacCabe, in this first biography of the director, has written a thrilling account of the French cinema's transformation in the hands of Truffaut, Rohmer, Rivette, and Chabrol--critics who toppled the old aesthetics by becoming, legendarily, directors themselves--and Godard's determination to make cinema the greatest of the arts.
Watching the World Change: The Stories Behind the Images of 9/11
by David FriendThe terrorist attack on the World Trade Center was the most universally observed news event in human history. That the event was so visual is owing to the people who, facing disaster, took photographs of it: imperiled office workers, horrified tourists, professional photographers risking their lives. Conceived by Osama bin Laden as the toppling of an image of America right before the world's eyes, the tragedy swiftly came to be defined by photography, as families posted snapshots of their loved ones, police sought terrorists' faces on security-camera videotapes, and officials recorded the devastation and identified the dead.In Watching the World Change, David Friend tells the stories behind fifty of the images that altered our sense of our world forever—from the happenstance shots taken by bystanders as the first tower was struck to the scene of three firemen raising the Stars and Stripes at the site. He tells unforgettable stories of photographers and rescuers, victims and survivors. He shows how advances in television, digital photography, and the Internet produced an effect whereby more than two billion people saw the terrible events as they happened. He explores the controversy about whether images of 9/11 are redemptive or exploitative; and he shows how photographs help us to witness, to grieve, and finally to understand the unimaginable.
Them: Why We Hate Each Other—and How to Heal
by Ben Sasse* AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER *From the New York Times bestselling author of The Vanishing American Adult, an intimate and urgent assessment of the existential crisis facing our nation.Something is wrong. We all know it.American life expectancy is declining for a third straight year. Birth rates are dropping. Nearly half of us think the other political party isn’t just wrong; they’re evil. We’re the richest country in history, but we’ve never been more pessimistic. What’s causing the despair?In Them, bestselling author and U.S. senator Ben Sasse argues that, contrary to conventional wisdom, our crisis isn’t really about politics. It’s that we’re so lonely we can’t see straight—and it bubbles out as anger. Local communities are collapsing. Across the nation, little leagues are disappearing, Rotary clubs are dwindling, and in all likelihood, we don’t know the neighbor two doors down. Work isn’t what we’d hoped: less certainty, few lifelong coworkers, shallow purpose. Stable families and enduring friendships—life’s fundamental pillars—are in statistical freefall. As traditional tribes of place evaporate, we rally against common enemies so we can feel part of a team. No institutions command widespread public trust, enabling foreign intelligence agencies to use technology to pick the scabs on our toxic divisions. We’re in danger of half of us believing different facts than the other half, and the digital revolution throws gas on the fire. There’s a path forward—but reversing our decline requires something radical: a rediscovery of real places and human-to-human relationships. Even as technology nudges us to become rootless, Sasse shows how only a recovery of rootedness can heal our lonely souls. America wants you to be happy, but more urgently, America needs you to love your neighbor and connect with your community. Fixing what's wrong with the country depends on it.
The Wind Off the Sea: A Novel of the Women Who Prevailed After World War II
by Charlotte BinghamIt is 1947, the worst winter in England since records began, and even the sea is frozen. For the women living in the little fishing port of Bexham, the chronic lack of everything from fuel to food has left them reeling. When Waldo Astley, a handsome young American, drives through thick Sussex snow into the village in his large Buick, he finds Bexham filled not only with grumbling residents, but with frustrated wives and mothers, forced back behind their stoves after celebrating the victory for which they fought so hard on the home front.But Waldo is no ordinary character, and while he has come to Bexham on a personal mission, his effect on all the residents is truly electrifying. For Judy, whose marriage to Walter has been badly affected by long years of separation; for Rusty, whose miscarriage has been mind-shattering; for Mathilda, whose single motherhood has put her eligibility in jeopardy; and for Meggie, still not recovered from her ordeal as a secret agent. For all these women, Waldo Astley is not just a breath of fresh air--but the wind off the sea.
The Adventures of John Carson in Several Quarters of the World: A Novel of Robert Louis Stevenson
by Brian Doyle"An affectionate homage...a loving reconstruction of an era of storytelling now lost." —The New York Times"[A] triumph...If a writer is going to put on Stevenson’s voice, he’d better, as the poets say, 'bring it.' Reader, Doyle has brought it...Adventures is a tonic for our bitter times." —Washington PostThe young Robert Louis Stevenson, living in a boarding house in San Francisco in the 19th century while waiting for his beloved’s divorce from her feckless husband, dreamed of writing a soaring novel about his landlady’s adventurous and globe-trotting husband—but he never got around to it. And very soon thereafter he was married, headed home to Scotland, and on his way to becoming the most famous novelist in the world, after writing such classics as Treasure Island, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Kidnapped.But now Brian Doyle brings Stevenson’s untold tale to life, braiding the adventures of seaman John Carson with those of a young Stevenson, wandering the streets of San Francisco, gathering material for his fiction, and yearning for his beloved across the bay. An adventure tale, an elegy to one of the greatest writers of our language, a time-traveling plunge into The City by the Bay during its own energetic youth, The Adventures of John Carson in Several Quarters of the World is entertaining, poignant, and sensual.
The Wound and the Bow: Seven Studies in Literature (Library Of America Edmund Wilson Edition Ser.)
by Edmund WilsonThe Wound and the Bow contains seven essays by "The greatest literary critic of the twentieth century.” -New York magazine.Combining biographical and critical sketches, Edmund Wilson writes brilliantly on a wide-range of authors including Dickens, Kipling, Edith Wharton, Ernest Hemingway, Joyce, Jacques Casanova, and Sophocles. "In the best tradition of literary criticism… combines exact information with shrewd and searching penetration into the personal life of the artist."-The New York Times