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The sheltered son of a Jewish mobster, Art Bechstein leaps into his first summer as a college graduate as cluelessly as he capered through his school years. But new friends and lovers are eager to guide him through these sultry days of last-ditch youthful alienation and sexual confusion?in a blue-collar city where the mundane can sometimes appear almost magical.

A memoir of a city, an industry, and a dynasty in decline, and the story of a young artist's struggle to find her way out of the ruins.Frances Strohf's earliest memories are of enormous privilege: shopping trips to London and New York, lunches served by black-tied waiters at the Regency Hotel, and a house filled with precious antiques that she was forbidden to touch. Established in Detroit in 1850, the Stroh Brewing Company had become by 1984 the third-largest brewing empire in America and a brand emblematic of the American dream itself.But beneath the beautiful facade lay a crumbling foundation. Detroit's economy collapsed with the retreat of the automotive industry to the suburbs and abroad, and, likewise, the Strohs found their wealth and legacy disappearing. As their fortune dissolved in little over a decade, the family was torn apart internally by divorce and one member's drug bust, disagreements over the management of the business, and disputes over the remaining money they possessed. Even as they turned against one another, they could not anticipate that far greater tragedy was in store.

"This masterful novel combines readable, lyrical prose with a compelling plot and complex characters. . . . Wisdom weaves these tangled threads with overarching themes of how the patriarchy controls women's minds and bodies." ?Booklist (Starred Review)The acclaimed author of We Can Only Save Ourselves returns with an urgent and unsettling story that journeys into the heart of religious fanaticism and cult behavior as it probes one woman's struggle to define life on her own terms.?Here comes trouble,? Rosemary's high school English teacher used to say whenever he saw her. Rosemary has often felt like trouble, and now at thirty-two, her marriage to her college sweetheart, Paul, is crumbling. In a last-ditch attempt to restore it, she agrees to give herself over to a newly formed Christian sect in central Texas, run by charismatic young pastor Papa Jake. While Paul acclimates quickly to the small town of Dawson and the church's insistence on a strict set of puritanical rules, Rosemary struggles to fit in. She finds purpose only when she's called upon to help Julie, a new mother in the community, who is feeling isolated and lost.Then the community is rocked by a series of fires which take some church members' homes and nearly take their lives, but which Papa Jake says are holy and a representation of God's will. As the fires spread, and Julie is betrayed in a terrible way, Rosemary begins to question the reality of her life, and wonders if trouble will always find her?or if she'll ever be able to outrun it.

"A riveting page-turner that begs to be read quickly, compulsively. But page by page, this electrifying debut by Willa Richards weaves an increasingly complicated and dark tale of guilt, fury, and the danger of building stories on that shakiest of foundations, memory." ?Elizabeth Wetmore, New York Times bestselling author of ValentineSet in Milwaukee during the ?Dahmer summer? of 1991, a remarkable debut novel for fans of Mary Gaitskill and Gillian Flynn about two sisters?one who disappears, and one who is left to pick up the pieces in the aftermath.In the summer of 1991, a teenage girl named Dee McBride vanished in the city of Milwaukee. Nearly thirty years later, her sister, Peg, is still haunted by her sister's disappearance. Their mother, on her deathbed, is desperate to find out what happened to Dee so the family hires a psychic to help find Dee's body and bring them some semblance of peace. The appearance of the psychic plunges Peg back to the past, to those final carefree months when she last saw Dee?the summer the Journal Sentinel called ?the deadliest . . . in the history of Milwaukee.? Serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer's heinous crimes dominated the headlines and overwhelmed local law enforcement. The disappearance of one girl was easily overlooked.Peg's hazy recollections are far from easy for her to interpret, assess, or even keep clear in her mind. And now digging deep into her memory raises doubts and difficult?even terrifying?questions. Was there anything Peg could have done to prevent Dee's disappearance? Who was really to blame for the family's loss? How often are our memories altered by the very act of voicing them? And what does it mean to bear witness in a world where even our own stories are inherently suspect?A heartbreaking page-turner, Willa C. Richards's novel is the story of a broken family looking for answers in the face of the unknown, and asks us to reconsider the power and truth of memory.

?Maeve Binchy fans will adore it?she just gets better and better.??Patricia Scanlan On Ireland's Finfarran Peninsula, summer means glorious weather and a life-changing choice for local librarian Hanna Casey in this delightful installment in the USA Today bestselling series, a captivating tale filled with all the beauty, charm, and warmth of Ireland that is perfect for fans of Jenny Colgan, Nina George, and Nancy Thayer.Summer has finally arrived on Ireland's west coast. On the Finfarran Peninsula, Hanna Casey is looking forward to al fresco lunches with friends and balmy evenings with her boyfriend Brian in their stunning new home in beautiful Hag's Glen. With a painful divorce behind her and family drama finally settled, Hanna begins to plan a romantic holiday getaway for the two of them.But life takes a turn when Brian's adult son suddenly moves in and Hanna unexpectedly runs into Amy, a former flatmate from Hanna's twenties in London. Reminded of her youth?and all the dreams and hopes she once had?Hanna begins to wonder if everything she now has is enough. When Amy suggests a reunion in London with old friends, Hanna accepts. While it's only short hop to England, Hanna feels like she's leaving Brian far behind. And when she's offered a new opportunity?the chance to be more than a local librarian in the little rural community where she grew up?Hanna is faced with a difficult choice: to decide what her heart truly wants.

A Library Journal Best Book of 2014A Christian Science Monitor Best Book of 2014New York Times bestselling author Karen Abbott tells the spellbinding true story of four women who risked everything during the Civil War.Seventeen-year-old Belle Boyd, an avowed rebel with a dangerous temper, shot a Union soldier in her home, and became a courier and spy for the Confederate army, using her considerable charms to seduce men on both sides. Emma Edmonds disguised herself as a man to enlist as a Union private named Frank Thompson, witnessing the bloodiest battles of the war and infiltrating enemy lines. The beautiful widow Rose O'Neal Greenhow engaged in affairs with powerful Northern politicians and used her young daughter to send information to Southern generals. Elizabeth Van Lew, a wealthy Richmond abolitionist, hid behind her proper Southern manners as she orchestrated a far-reaching espionage ring?even placing a former slave inside the Confederate White House?right under the noses of increasingly suspicious rebel detectives.With a cast of real-life characters, including Nathaniel Hawthorne, General Stonewall Jackson, Detective Allan Pinkerton, Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln, and Emperor Napoléon III, Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy shines a dramatic new light on these daring?and, until now, unsung?heroines.

The second full length poetry collection from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of What Kind of Woman.Kate Baer shot into the literary stratosphere with the publication of her debut poetry collection, What Kind of Woman, which became an instant #1 New York Times bestseller.Kate's second full-length book of traditional poetry, And Yet, dives deeper into the themes that are the hallmarks of her writing: motherhood, friendship, love, and loss. Taken together, these poems demonstrate the remarkable evolution of a writer and an artist working at the height of her craft, pushing herself and her poetry in a beautiful and impressive way.Intimate, evocative, and bold, Kate's beguiling poetry firmly positions her in the company of Dorianne Laux, Mary Oliver, Maggie Nelson, and other great female poets of our time.

In this provocative and illuminating account, Richard McGregor offers a captivating portrait of China's Communist Party, its grip on power and control over China, and its future. China's political and economic growth in the past three decades has been one of astonishing, epochal dimensions. The most remarkable part of this transformation, however, has been left largely untold?the central role of the Chinese Communist Party. In The Party, Richard McGregor delves deeply into China's inner sanctum for the first time, showing how the Communist Party controls the government, courts, media, and military and keeps all corruption accusations against its members in-house. The Party's decisions have a global impact, yet the CCP remains a deeply secretive body, hostile to the law and unaccountable to anyone or anything other than its own internal tribunals. It is the world's only geopolitical rival of the United States, and is primed to think the worst of the West.

#1 Sunday Times Bestseller?Lush, evocative and utterly irresistible.??Jennifer Saint, author of AriadnePrepare to lift the lid on a lush reimagination of the mythological Pandora....Susan Stokes-Chapman's atmospheric debut, PANDORA, immerses the reader in the dangerous, mysterious world of ancient antiquities with prose that is elegant and teeming with visceral sensory detail. A marvelous debut?imaginative, ambitious, and begging to be savored." ? Sarah Penner, New York Times bestselling author of The Last ApothecarySteeped in mystery and rich in imagination, an exhilarating historical novel set in Georgian London where the discovery of a mysterious ancient Greek vase sets in motion conspiracies, revelations, and romance.London, 1799. Dora Blake, an aspiring jewelry artist, lives with her odious uncle atop her late parents' once-famed shop of antiquities. After a mysterious Greek vase is delivered, her uncle begins to act suspiciously, keeping the vase locked in the store's basement, away from prying eyes?including Dora's. Intrigued by her uncle's peculiar behavior, Dora turns to young, ambitious antiquarian scholar Edward Lawrence who eagerly agrees to help. Edward believes the ancient vase is the key that will unlock his academic future; Dora sees it as a chance to establish her own name.But what Edward discovers about the vase has Dora questioning everything she has believed about her life, her family, and the world as she knows it. As Dora uncovers the truth, she comes to understand that some doors are locked and some mysteries are buried for a reason, while others are closer to the surface than they appear.A story of myth and mystery, secrets and deception, fate and hope, Pandora is an enchanting work of historical fiction as captivating and evocative as The Song of Achilles, The Essex Serpent, and The Miniaturist.

"Chan and Ridley write with an urgency...that inspires gripping depictions of what viruses are, how infectious-disease laboratories work and wonderfully lucid descriptions of bats. . . . They powerfully recount how dangerous pathogens can both leak from a lab and emerge in nature." (New York Times Book Review) Understanding how Covid-19 started is crucial for the future of humankind. Viral is the most incisive and authoritative book about the search for the source of the virus.A new virus descended on the human species in 2019 wreaking unprecedented havoc. Finding out where it came from and how it first jumped into people is an urgent priority, but early expectations that this would prove an easy question to answer have been dashed. Nearly two years into the pandemic, the crucial mystery of the origin of SARS-CoV-2 is not only unresolved but has deepened. In this uniquely insightful book, a scientist and a writer join forces to try to get to the bottom of how a virus whose closest relations live in bats in subtropical southern China somehow managed to begin spreading among people more than 1,500 kilometres away in the city of Wuhan. They grapple with the baffling fact that the virus left none of the expected traces that such outbreaks usually create: no infected market animals or wildlife, no chains of early cases in travellers to the city, no smouldering epidemic in a rural area, no rapid adaptation of the virus to its new host?human beings. To try to solve this pressing mystery, Viral delves deep into the events of 2019 leading up to 2021, the details of what went on in animal markets and virology laboratories, the records and data hidden from sight within archived Chinese theses and websites, and the clues that can be coaxed from the very text of the virus's own genetic code. The result is a gripping detective story that takes the reader deeper and deeper into a metaphorical cave of mystery. One by one the authors explore promising tunnels only to show that they are blind alleys, until, miles beneath the surface, they find themselves tantalisingly close to a shaft that leads to the light.

A Washington Post Best Book of the YearIn 1945, a young African-American man from Laurel, Mississippi, was sentenced to death for allegedly raping Willette Hawkins, a white housewife. The case was barely noticed until Bella Abzug, a young New York labor lawyer, was hired to oversee Willie McGee's appeal. Together with William Patterson, a dedicated black reformer, Abzug risked her life to plead the case. ?Free Willie McGee? became an international rallying cry, with supporters flooding President Truman's White House and the U.S. Supreme Court with clemency pleas and famous Americans?including William Faulkner, Albert Einstein, and Norman Mailer?speaking out on McGee's behalf. By 1951, millions worldwide were convinced of McGee's innocence?even though there were serious questions about his claim that the truth involved a secret love affair. In this unforgettable story of justice in the Deep South, Mississippi native Alex Heard reexamines the lasting mysteries surrounding McGee's haunting case.

A mordantly funny, all-too-real novel in the vein of Tom Perotta and Emma Straub about a suburban American family who have to figure out how to survive themselves and their neighbors in the wake of a global calamity that upends all of modern life.It's Tuesday morning in Lincolnwood, New Jersey, and all four members of the Altman family are busy ignoring each other en route to work and school. Dan, a lawyer turned screenwriter, is preoccupied with satisfying his imperious TV producer boss's creative demands. Seventeen-year-old daughter Chloe obsesses over her college application essay and the state tennis semifinals. Her vape-addicted little brother, Max, silently plots revenge against a thuggish freshman classmate. And their MBA-educated mom Jen, who gave up a successful business career to raise the kids, is counting the minutes until the others vacate the kitchen and she can pour her first vodka of the day. Then, as the kids begin their school day and Dan rides a commuter train into Manhattan, the world comes to a sudden, inexplicable stop. Lights, phones, laptops, cars, trains...the entire technological infrastructure of 21st-century society quits working. Normal life, as the Altmans and everyone else knew it, is over. Or is it? Over four transformative, chaotic days, this privileged but clueless American family will struggle to hold it together in the face of water shortages, paramilitary neighbors, and the well-mannered looting of the local Whole Foods as they try to figure out just what the hell is going on.

?True Detective meets Swamp Thing in the Artemis Fowl author's neo-noirish thriller about a curmudgeonly dragon in Louisiana.? ?GuardianFrom the New York Times bestselling author of the Artemis Fowl series comes a hilarious and high-octane adult novel about a vodka-drinking, Flashdance-loving dragon who lives an isolated life in the bayous of Louisiana?and the raucous adventures that ensue when he crosses paths with a fifteen-year-old troublemaker on the run from a crooked sheriff.In the days of yore, he flew the skies and scorched angry mobs?now he hides from swamp tour boats and rises only with the greatest reluctance from his Laz-Z-Boy recliner. Laying low in the bayou, this once-magnificent fire breather has been reduced to lighting Marlboros with nose sparks, swilling Absolut in a Flashdance T-shirt, and binging Netflix in a fishing shack. For centuries, he struck fear in hearts far and wide as Wyvern, Lord Highfire of the Highfire Eyrie?now he goes by Vern. However...he has survived, unlike the rest. He is the last of his kind, the last dragon. Still, no amount of vodka can drown the loneliness in his molten core. Vern's glory days are long gone. Or are they?A canny Cajun swamp rat, young Everett ?Squib? Moreau does what he can to survive, trying not to break the heart of his saintly single mother. He's finally decided to work for a shady smuggler?but on his first night, he witnesses his boss murdered by a crooked constable. Regence Hooke is not just a dirty cop, he's a despicable human being?who happens to want Squib's momma in the worst way. When Hooke goes after his hidden witness with a grenade launcher, Squib finds himself airlifted from certain death by...a dragon?The swamp can make strange bedfellows, and rather than be fried alive so the dragon can keep his secret, Squib strikes a deal with the scaly apex predator. He can act as his go-between (aka familiar)?fetch his vodka, keep him company, etc.?in exchange for protection from Hooke. Soon the three of them are careening headlong toward a combustible confrontation. There's about to be a fiery reckoning, in which either dragons finally go extinct?or Vern's glory days are back.A triumphant return to the genre-bending fantasy that Eoin Colfer is so well known for, Highfire is an effortlessly clever and relentlessly funny tour-de-force of comedy and action.

Shortlisted for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction • A Refinery 29 Favorite Book of the Year • A Booklist Top 10 First Novels of the Year • A People Best Book of the Fall?Wonderful... completely transporting.? ?Madeline Miller, New York Times bestselling author of Circe and The Song of Achilles In 1780s London, a prosperous merchant finds his quiet life upended when he unexpectedly receives a most unusual creature?and meets a most extraordinary woman?in this much-lauded, atmospheric debut that examines our capacity for wonder, obsession, and desire with all the magnetism, originality, and literary magic of The Essex Serpent.One September evening in 1785, Jonah Hancock hears an urgent knocking on his front door near the docks of London. The captain of one of Jonah's trading vessels is waiting eagerly on the front step, bearing shocking news. On a voyage to the Far East, he sold the Jonah's ship for something rare and far more precious: a mermaid. Jonah is stunned?the object the captain presents him is brown and wizened, as small as an infant, with vicious teeth and claws, and a torso that ends in the tail of a fish. It is also dead.As gossip spreads through the docks, coffee shops, parlors and brothels, all of London is curious to see this marvel in Jonah Hancock's possession. Thrust from his ordinary existence, somber Jonah finds himself moving from the city's seedy underbelly to the finest drawing rooms of high society. At an opulent party, he makes the acquaintance of the coquettish Angelica Neal, the most desirable woman he has ever laid eyes on?and a shrewd courtesan of great accomplishment. This meeting sparks a perilous liaison that steers both their lives onto a dangerous new course as they come to realize that priceless things often come at the greatest cost.Imogen Hermes Gowar, Britain's most-heralded new literary talent, makes her debut with this spellbinding novel of a merchant, a mermaid, and a madam?an unforgettable confection that explores obsession, wonder, and the deepest desires of the heart with bawdy wit, intrigue, and a touch of magic.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERWinner of the Sophie Brody Medal • An NBCC Finalist for 2016 Award for Fiction • ALA Carnegie Medal Finalist for Excellence in Fiction • Wall Street Journal's Best Novel of the Year • A New York Times Notable Book of the Year • A Washington Post Best Book of the Year • An NPR Best Book of the Year • A Slate Best Book of the Year • A Christian Science Monitor Top 15 Fiction Book of the Year • A New York Magazine Best Book of the Year • A San Francisco Chronicle Book of the Year • A Buzzfeed Best Book of the Year • A New York Post Best Book of the YeariBooks Novel of the Year • An Amazon Editors' Top 20 Book of the Year • #1 Indie Next Pick • #1 Amazon Spotlight Pick • A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice • A BookPage Top Fiction Pick of the Month • An Indie Next Bestseller"This book is beautiful.? ? A.O. Scott, New York Times Book Review, cover reviewFollowing on the heels of his New York Times bestselling novel Telegraph Avenue, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon delivers another literary masterpiece: a novel of truth and lies, family legends, and existential adventure?and the forces that work to destroy us.In 1989, fresh from the publication of his first novel, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, Michael Chabon traveled to his mother's home in Oakland, California, to visit his terminally ill grandfather. Tongue loosened by powerful painkillers, memory stirred by the imminence of death, Chabon's grandfather shared recollections and told stories the younger man had never heard before, uncovering bits and pieces of a history long buried and forgotten. That dreamlike week of revelations forms the basis for the novel Moonglow, the latest feat of legerdemain from Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon. Moonglow unfolds as the deathbed confession of a man the narrator refers to only as ?my grandfather.? It is a tale of madness, of war and adventure, of sex and marriage and desire, of existential doubt and model rocketry, of the shining aspirations and demonic underpinnings of American technological accomplishment at midcentury, and, above all, of the destructive impact?and the creative power?of keeping secrets and telling lies. It is a portrait of the difficult but passionate love between the narrator's grandfather and his grandmother, an enigmatic woman broken by her experience growing up in war-torn France. It is also a tour de force of speculative autobiography in which Chabon devises and reveals a secret history of his own imagination. From the Jewish slums of prewar South Philadelphia to the invasion of Germany, from a Florida retirement village to the penal utopia of New York's Wallkill prison, from the heyday of the space program to the twilight of the ?American Century,? the novel revisits an entire era through a single life and collapses a lifetime into a single week. A lie that tells the truth, a work of fictional nonfiction, an autobiography wrapped in a novel disguised as a memoir, Moonglow is Chabon at his most moving and inventive.

A NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARD FINALIST?The Alter sisters are mordant, wry, and crystalline in wit and vision; it is a tremendous pleasure to rocket through generations of their family histories with them.??Lauren Groff, New York Times bestselling author of Fates and Furies, The Monsters of Templeton, and ArcadiaIn the waning days of 1999, the last of the Alters?three damaged but wisecracking sisters who share an apartment on Manhattan's Upper West Side?decide it's time to close the circle of the family curse by taking their own lives. But first, Lady, Vee, and Delph must explain the origins of that curse and how it has manifested throughout the preceding generations. Unspooling threads of history, personal memory, and family lore, they weave a mesmerizing account that stretches back a century to their great-grandfather, a brilliant scientist whose professional triumph became the terrible legacy that defines them. A suicide note crafted by three bright, funny women, A Reunion of Ghosts is the final chapter of a saga lifetimes in the making?one that is inexorably intertwined with the story of the twentieth century itself.?Mitchell explores the mixed-blessing bonds of family with wry wit. This original tale is black comedy at its best.??People Book of the Week?A rich portrait of a complicated family, at turns violent and hilarious.??Emma Straub, New York Times bestselling author

The riveting personal story of a young French journalist who goes undercover and gets dangerously close to a key member of ISISOn Facebook, "Mélodie"?a twenty-year-old convert to Islam living with her mother and sister in Toulouse?meets Bilel, a French-born, high-ranking militant for the Islamic State in Syria. Within days, Bilel falls in love with Mélodie, and Skypes her repeatedly, urging her to come to Syria, marry him, and do jihad.But "Mélodie" is actually Anna Erelle, a Paris-based journalist investigating the recruitment channels of the Islamic State, whose digital propaganda constitutes one of its most formidable and frightening weapons, successfully mobilizing increasing numbers of young Europeans. In this mesmerizing true story, Erelle chronicles her intense monthlong relationship with Bilel?who turns out to be none other than the right-hand man of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the self-proclaimed caliph of ISIS. Impatient for Mélodie to join him, Bilel tells her that, according to an imam he has consulted, they are already all but married, and will be officially when she arrives in Syria. As she embarks on the final, most perilous stage of her investigation, Mélodie leaves for Amsterdam to begin her journey to the Middle East. But things go terribly wrong.A gripping and often harrowing inquiry into the factors that motivate young people to join extremist causes, In the Skin of a Jihadist is a page-turner that helps us better understand the appeal of extremism.

From the voice of a generation:...smashed his first guitar onstage, in 1964, by accident....heard the voice of God on a vibrating bed in rural Illinois....invented the Marshall stack, feedback, and the concept album....stole his windmill guitar-playing from Keith Richards....detached from his body in an airplane, on LSD, and nearly died....has some explaining to do....is the most literary and literate musician of the last fifty years....planned to write his memoir when he was 21....published this book at 67.One of rock music's most intelligent and literary performers, Pete Townshend?guitarist, songwriter, editor?tells his closest-held stories about the origins of the preeminent twentieth-century band The Who, his own career as an artist and performer, and his restless life in and out of the public eye in this candid autobiography, Who I Am.With eloquence, fierce intelligence, and brutal honesty, Pete Townshend has written a deeply personal book that also stands as a primary source for popular music's greatest epoch. Readers will be confronted by a man laying bare who he is, an artist who has asked for nearly sixty years: Who are you?

?[A] beguiling biography. . . . Korda is at his best describing, after the heroics in the desert, the touching antiheroics of Lawrence's later life.? ? New York Times Book ReviewA Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year and a New York Times Editor's Choice--the definitive biography of the legendary British soldier, scholar and adventurer who became a myth even in his lifetime, T. E. Lawrence, ?Lawrence of Arabia."From Michael Korda, author of the New York Times bestselling Eisenhower biography Ike and the captivating Battle of Britain book With Wings Like Eagles, comes the critically-acclaimed definitive biography of T. E. Lawrence?the legendary British soldier, strategist, scholar, and adventurer whose exploits as ?Lawrence of Arabia? created a legacy of mythic proportions in his own lifetime. Many know T.E. Lawrence from David Lean's Oscar-winning 1962 biopic?based, itself, upon Lawrence's autobiographical Seven Pillars of Wisdom?but in the tradition of modern biographers like John Meacham, David McCullough, and Barbara Leaming, Michael Korda's penetrating new examination reveals new depth and character in the twentieth century's quintessential English hero.

In his heartbreaking yet hopeful fourth novel, award-winning author Willy Vlautin demonstrates his extraordinary talent for illuminating the disquiet of modern American life, captured in the experiences of three memorable characters looking for meaning in distressing times.Severely wounded in the Iraq war, Leroy Kervin has lived in a group home for eight years. Frustrated by the simplest daily routines, he finds his existence has become unbearable. An act of desperation helps him disappear deep into his mind, into a world of romance and science fiction, danger and adventure where he is whole once again.Freddie McCall, the night man at Leroy's group home, works two jobs yet still can't make ends meet. He's lost his wife and kids, and the house is next. Medical bills have buried him in debt, a situation that propels him to consider a lucrative?and dangerous?proposition.Pauline Hawkins, a nurse, cares for the sick and wounded, including Leroy. She also looks after her mentally ill elderly father. Yet she remains emotionally removed, until she meets a young runaway who touches something deep and unexpected inside her.In crystalline prose, both beautiful and devastating, this "major realist talent" (Seattle Post-Intelligencer) considers the issues transforming ordinary people's lives?the cost of health care, the lack of economic opportunity, the devastating scars of war?creating an extraordinary contemporary portrait that is also a testament to the resiliency of the human heart.

?For much of the twentieth century, these remarkable early novels were hidden in the great shadow of The Bridge of San Luis Rey. Now we can examine them in the spotlight for the gifts that they are?memorable monuments to style and keys to understanding Wilder's genius.? ? Penelope Niven, Thornton Wilder BiographerFeaturing a foreword by Penelope Niven and a revealing afterword by the author's nephew, Tappan Wilder, this gorgeous reissue reacquaints readers with Thornton Wilder's first novel, The Cabala, along with The Woman of Andros, one of the inspirations for his Pulitzer Prize-winning play Our Town. The Cabala tells the story of a young American student who spends a year in the exotic world of post-World War I Rome. While there, he experiences firsthand the waning days of a secret community (a "cabala") of decaying royalty, a great cardinal of the Roman Church, and an assortment of memorable American ex-pats. A semiautobiographical novel of unforgettable characters and human passions, The Cabala launched Wilder's career as a celebrated storyteller and dramatist.The Woman of Andros, set on the obscure Greek island of Brynos before the birth of Christ, explores universal questions of what is precious about life and how we live, love, and die. Eight years later, Wilder would pose these same questions on the stage in a play titled Our Town, also set in an obscure location, this time a village in New Hampshire. The Woman of Andros is celebrated for some of the most beautiful writing in American literature.

An enduring triumph of moral and psychological insight, George Eliot's classic novel traces the lives of four residents of a fictional English town rocked by the changes of a modernizing world.Dorothea Brooke married Edward Casaubon?a clergyman and scholar some years her senior?naively hoping their union would be a true meeting of the minds. Trapped in a lonely marriage to a tyrannical man, she finds companionship with Edward's cousin, but her overtures risk her spotless reputation and jeopardize her future.Young doctor Tertius Lydgate comes to Middlemarch full of progressive ideas, eager to volunteer his skill at the local hospital. Through his connections there he meets the mayor's beautiful daughter, Rosamond Vincy, and marries her, only to face financial ruin at the hands of her materialism and overwhelming vanity.Rosamond's brother, Fred, is destined for the Church to improve his family's class standing, but his childhood sweetheart, Mary Garth, refuses to marry him unless he pursues a more suitable career. Forced by fate into uncertain financial circumstances, Fred must question his choices and desires if he hopes to earn Mary's respect.God-fearing and esteemed, Nicholas Bulstrode is a good man and trustworthy banker?or so it appears until an old enemy comes to town, intent on revealing Bulstrode's shady past dealings. Terrified of being exposed as a hypocrite, he takes matters into his own hands, each desperate act spiraling him further into disgrace and corruption.A masterwork of fiction, Middlemarch traces these four lives in a plot that illuminates the social fabric of mid-nineteenth-century England. Looming above the landscape of Victorian literature, Eliot's beloved novel explores the perennial struggle between individual and society, integrity and temptation, and is as timely today as when it was first published.

Longlisted for the 2011 Scotiabank Giller Prize Critically lauded, The Beggar's Garden is a brilliantly surefooted, strikingly original collection of nine linked short stories that will delight as well as disturb. The stories follow a diverse group of curiously interrelated characters, from bank manager to crackhead to retired Samaritan to web designer to car thief, as they drift through each other's lives in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. These engrossing stories, free of moral judgment, are about people who are searching in the jagged margins of life-for homes, drugs, love, forgiveness-and collectively they offer a generous and vivid portrait of humanity, not just in Vancouver but in any modern urban centre. The Beggar's Garden is a powerful and affecting debut. Its individual stories have been anthologized in The Journey Prize Stories and have been nominated for major awards, including a National Magazine Award for fiction. The collection has been longlisted for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award.

With the death of Edward VI in 1553, England, for the first time, would have a reigning queen. The question was: Who? Four women stood upon the crest of history: Katherine of Aragon's daughter, Mary; Anne Boleyn's daughter, Elizabeth; Mary, Queen of Scots; and Lady Jane Grey. But over the centuries, other exceptional women had struggled to push the boundaries of their authority and influence?and been vilified as ?she-wolves? for their ambitions. Revealed in vivid detail, the stories of Eleanor of Aquitaine, Isabella of France, Margaret of Anjou, and the Empress Matilda expose the paradox that England's next female leaders would confront as the Tudor throne lay before them?man ruled woman, but these women sought to rule a nation.