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These eleven arresting, comic, and moving stories by acclaimed writer Michael Parker testify to the driving force of love, the lengths to which we'll go to claim it and pursue it, the delusions we'll float to keep it going, the torment that goes part and parcel with it. And despite all of the above, the absolute necessity of it, no matter its consequences. Whether it's a college student undone by the boy who leaves her, or the boyfriend intent on leveling old scores from high school for his lover, or the husband who discovers-in the grocery store-the woman he should have been with all along, every character, no matter how off track, wants to believe in debt and credit and payback and making the messy world-and the messy world of love-turn out neatly.
After more than a century of silence, the true story of one of history''s most notorious mutinies is revealed in Joan Druett''s riveting "nautical murder mystery" (USA Today). On May 25, 1841, the Massachusetts whaleship Sharon set out for the whaling ground of the northwestern Pacific. A year later, while most of the crew was out hunting, Captain Howes Norris was brutally murdered. When the men in the whaleboats returned, they found four crew members on board, three of whom were covered in blood, the other screaming from atop the mast. Single-handedly, the third officer launched a surprise attack to recapture the Sharon, killing two of the attackers and subduing the other. An American investigation into the murder was never conducted--even when the Sharon returned home three years later, with only four of the original twenty-nine crew on board. Joan Druett, a historian who''s been called a female Patrick O''Brian by the Wall Street Journal, dramatically re-creates the mystery of the ill-fated whaleship and reveals a voyage filled with savagery under the command of one of the most ruthless captains to sail the high seas.
Jill McCorkle's new collection of twelve short stories is peopled with characters brilliantly like us-flawed, clueless, endearing. These stories are also animaled with all manner of mammal, bird, fish, reptile-also flawed and endearing. She asks, what don't humans share with the so-called lesser species? Looking for the answer, she takes us back to her fictional home town of Fulton, North Carolina, to meet a broad range of characters facing up to the double-edged sword life offers hominids. The insight with which McCorkle tells their stories crackles with wit, but also with a deeper-and more forgiving-wisdom than ever before. In Billy Goats, Fulton's herd of seventh graders cruises the summer nights, peeking into parked cars, maddening the town madman. In Monkeys, a widow holds her husband's beloved spider monkey close along with his deepest secrets. In Dogs, a single mother who works for a veterinarian compares him-unfavorably-with his patients. In Snakes, a seasoned wife sees what might have been a snake in the grass and decides to step over it. And, in the exquisite final story, Fish, a grieving daughter remembers her father's empathy for the ugliest of all fishes. The success behind Jill McCorkle's short stories-and her novels-is, as one reviewer noted, her skill as an archaeologist of the absurd, an expert at excavating and examining the comedy of daily life (Richmond Times-Dispatch). Yes, and also the tragedy.
They were smart. Sassy. Daring. Exotic. Eclectic. Sexy. And influential. One could call them the first divas--and they ran absolutely wild. They were poets, actresses, singers, artists, journalists, publishers, baronesses, and benefactresses. They were thinkers and they were drinkers. They eschewed the social conventions expected of them--to be wives and mothers--and decided to live on their own terms. In the process, they became the voices of a new, fierce feminine spirit.There's Mina Loy, a modernist poet and much-photographed beauty who traveled in pivotal international art circles; blues divas Bessie Smith and Ethel Waters; Edna St. Vincent Millay, the lyric poet who, with her earthy charm and passion, embodied the '20s ideal of sexual daring; the avant-garde publishers Margaret Anderson and Jane Heap; and the wealthy hostesses of the salons, A'Lelia Walker and Mabel Dodge. Among the supporting cast are Emma Goldman, Isadora Duncan, Ma Rainey, Margaret Sanger, and Gertrude Stein.Andrea Barnet's fascinating accounts of the emotional and artistic lives of these women--together with rare black-and-white photographs, taken by photographers such as Berenice Abbott and Man Ray--capture the women in all their glory. This is a history of the early feminists who didn't set out to be feminists, a celebration of the rebellious women who paved the way for future generations.
In The Christmas Letters, three generations of women reveal their stories of love and marriage in the letters they write to family and friends during the holidays. It's a down-home Christmas story about tradition, family, and the shared experiences of women. Here, in a letter of her own, Lee Smith explains how she was inspired to write this celebrated epistolary novel: Dear Friends, Like me, you probably get Christmas letters every year. I read every word and save every letter. Because every Christmas letter is the story of a life, and what story can be more interesting than the story of our lives? Often, it is the story of an entire family. But you also have to read between the lines with Christmas letters. Sometimes, what is not said is even more important than what is on the page. In The Christmas Letters, I have used this familiar format to illumine the lives, hopes, dreams, and disappointments of three generations of American women. Much of the story of The Christmas Letters is also told through shared recipes. As Mary, my favorite character, says, "e;I feel as if I have written out my life story in recipes! The Cool Whip and mushroom soup years, the hibachi and fondue period, then the quiche and crepes phase, and now it's these salsa years."e; I wrote this little book for the same reason I write to my friends and relatives every holiday--Christmas letters give us a chance to remember and celebrate who we are. With warmest greetings, Lee Smith
Diana Wells's intriguing exploration into the rewards of relationships--both the canine and human varieties--begins when she reluctantly starts seeing a psychologist, Beth, during a difficult time in her life. With no insurance to pay for counseling, a barter is arranged in which the client becomes part-time caretaker to the therapist's dog, Luggs, a sweet, clumsy black Labrador retriever. As Wells examines her past--her peripatetic childhood, her eccentric family, her grief over the deaths of loved ones--Luggs provides a bridge between therapist and patient. Dog lover by nature, historian by trade, Wells finds herself curious about the connections that dogs and humans have shared for centuries--and what these bonds tell us about our own psyches. Wells observes that training a dog has much in common with the therapeutic techniques her psychologist employs. Looking into recent experiments that have proved dogs better at interpreting human behavior than chimps or wolves, Wells explores the subtleties of her own relationship with dogs. Increasingly she finds herself agreeing with Diogenes, the original Greek cynic (the word cynic comes from the greek kuon, meaning "e;dog"e;), who said that unless we think like dogs, happiness will elude us. Wells analyzes what we name our dogs, how we breed them, how we've explored the wilderness with them, the kinds of literature we write about them, why we love them, and, most important, what we can learn from them. When an unexpected illness befalls Beth, Luggs comforts the two women, and his devotion helps Wells come to accept that relationships--despite the possibility of hurt and pain--are what life is all about.
Luba lives with her parents in a Chicago neighborhood full of others like themselves-immigrants from Ukraine. Her parents want only two things: to enjoy a new life in America and to hold on to the old ways-the church, the language, the traditions-of Ukrainian culture. They want these things for Luba, too.Luba wants only the first part of their wish. She wants to leave her neighborhood-not to mention Ukraine-behind. It's 1968, and protesting American students have taken to the city streets. Thinking that it's time she breaks step with her heritage and gets into step with her peers, Luba registers as Linda on the first day at her commuter college. Then she buys a second-hand car to drive into a future far from her parent's Wheat Street home.The car must, however, first carry her father to his doctor's appointments, a Ukrainian celebrity to her featured appearances, a dying neighbor home from work, and her lifelong buddies to school and back. Somewhere along the way, Linda takes a backseat and Luba takes the wheel, finding a new road to a destination somewhere between Ukraine and America.In WHEN LUBA LEAVES HOME, award-winning author Irene Zabytko creates a bright new voice to tell the classic story of how the children of America's melting pot grow up strong enough to carry their double identities.
Good Counsel belongs on everyone's best-seller list. Junkin joins a select class of fiction writers, such as Scott Turow and John Grisham. -Plato Cacheris, ESQ. "A suspenseful novel that raises serious questions, Good Counsel gives the insider's look into the ethical traps in high stakes trial practice. Finely written and authoritative." -Jacob A. Stein, ESQ., author of Closing Argument-The Art and the Law "A masterful Page-turner, Good Counsel plunges us into the lawyer's worst nightmare-a face-to-face confrontation with his own conscience." -Ken Gormely, author of Archibald Cox: Conscience of a Nation
"e;This remarkable chronicle of the grueling Yukon Quest remains a vivid illustration of the soaring potential of both human and canine character"e; (Booklist).What happens when a woman and her husband move their family from New Hampshire to Alaska to train a team of purebred Siberian Huskies for the world's toughest dogsled race, the Yukon Quest? They endure thousands of miles of lonely training in the Yukon trying to avoid thin ice, wolves, and rogue moose; they put up with the amused skepticism of Alaskan locals; and they pit themselves against the ultimate, fickle adversary-nature.Running North is the true story of how Ann Mariah Cook, her husband, George, and their young daughter, Kathleen, moved to Alaska; and how their Siberians became the first team from the lower forty-eight states to finish the Yukon Quest. It tracks George on his horrific journey through the Yukon, recording the frostbite, the hallucinations that come with exhaustion, the wolves, and the nights out on the ice at minus ninety degrees Fahrenheit. But it is also the account of Ann, who drove the truck and carried the gear and kept the family together. Running North depicts two very different adventures on the edge: one among the racers braving the Yukon and the other among the people they leave behind."e;Marvelous, just marvelous."e; -Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, New York Times-bestselling author of The Hidden Life of Dogs"e;An explorer's tale with a feminine slant: Cook tells the story not just as dog lover and race handler . . . but also as wife and mother."e; -The New York Times Book Review
A haunting novel of a young man who follows his father into the world of commercial fishing, but is caught in a criminal's trap... When his father is lost in a storm off the Eastern Shore, Clay Wakeman drops out of college to take overhis father's crab trawler and his work as a waterman, that is, as an independent commercial fisherman. Since the old boat constitutes his sole inheritance, Clay starts out small. He recruits his oldest friend, Byron, a traumatized Vietnam veteran, to join him in a crabbing business. Just as they're breaking even, Hurricane Agnes roars in to ruin the salinity of the eastern Bay waters. The storm forces them across the Bay to set their crab traps along the Virginia shoreline, and to move in with Matt and Kate, Clay's upper-crust friends from Georgetown. It's in these unfamiliar waters that their real troubles begin. Clay falls irrevocably in love with the spoken-for Kate; Byron's demons pursue him with even greater vengeance; and out in the Bay, the partners stumble onto a drug-running operation. Lines are drawn by the dealers. And, in a riveting boat chase, Clay may find that his dream of continuing a family legacy might put an end to his future.
Family traditions, fond reminiscences, and over 60 heirloom recipes blend together in a fond memoir that recaptures a bygone era of Southern life.
With a foreword by David Halberstam. He spoke out against player trading. He banned Pete Rose from baseball for gambling. He even asked sports fans to clean up their acts. Bart Giamatti was baseball''s Renaissance man and its commissioner. In A GREAT AND GLORIOUS GAME, a collection of spirited, incisive essays, Giamatti reflects on the meaning of the game. Baseball, for him, was a metaphor for life. He artfully argues that baseball is much more than an American "pastime." "Baseball is about going home," he wrote, "and how hard it is to get there and how driven is our need." And in his powerful 1989 decision to ban Pete Rose from baseball, Giamatti states that no individual is superior to the game itself, just as no individual is superior to our democracy. A GREAT AND GLORIOUS GAME is a thoughtful meditation on baseball, character, and values by one of the most eloquent men in the world of sport.
These linked stories of four lonely city dwellers by the New York Timesbestselling author of A Three Dog Life come together in this';gem' (The Village Voice). ';A lonely hermit, a dead cobbler, a teenage runaway, and a 54-year-old virgin star in this... collection of poignant short stories set on New York's Upper West Side. In concise, deft prose, Thomas interweaves tales of ordinary people coping with urban malaise. The first piece describes Walter, a sci-fi writer, pondering the value of his existence after his wife walks out. After Walter is cheered up by Mexican rooftop singers, the narrative shifts to his troubled neighbor, Edith. An overweight, sexually frustrated woman, Edith's unusual antics include pocketing her dying mother's jewelry and leaving flowers in the trash for a homeless woman. As Edith and Walter come to grips with their loneliness, the chaotic New York milieu is a vital force invigorating their lives. After a 14-year old runs away in search of her older sister in the penultimate story, the collection ends with an adulteress struggling to move her dead lover's body, still clad in her husband's pajamas. In portraying each of her four characters, Thomas captures the subtle details of city life with elegance, flair, wit, and comic timing.' Boston Review ';Thomas has a way with details that makes for endings as bittersweet as her beginnings.' Publishers Weekly ';An entertaining, cohesive, and well-written volume.' Booklist
Each of the wonderfully daring stories in this collection rings true. Over and over, Nevai's characters--from an urbane ex-hippie in Manhattan to a disabled war veteran in rural Louisiana--miss in their attempts to connect with the people they love most. But, in the midst of all these missed connections, something remarkable (and often very funny) happens.
This collection of letters between distinguished sons and mothers offers an intimate and unexpected glimpse into the mind and heart of the artist. Whether it is to ask for socks or solace to sketch scenes of travel or conspire, the letters reveal moments of creativity, struggle and accomplishment.
Max Steele's exquisitely crafted stories have long been admired and studied by readers and writers alike. These fourteen stories demonstrate the range and depth of this distinguished writer. "Beautifully wrought . . . these stories stay deep in our consciousness."--The New York Times Book Review.
This is the story of a family who found, marked, and paved their way into America''s eastern frontier. Unfolding in the voices of three generations of mountaineer storytellers specializing in keeping listeners on the edges of their seats, this is fiction that plunks us down right into the thick of pioneer life. Using his own family stories as his inspiration, Robert Morgan has crafted a riveting folk history alive with adventure. Morgan''s three gifted storytellers tell it like it was--with a vengeance.
A New York Times Notable Book. When Sally Maulden is sent to her grandparents in Coldwater, Arkansas, she believes that she's too boring to be loved. But in this small town she finds love from unexpected sources. "Bursting with warmth. I didn't want it to end."--Chicago Tribune.
A true story of the first death row inmate exonerated by DNA that raises provocative questions about the US legal system and the death penalty. It also portrays the plight of Kirk Bloodsworth, who, because of his valiant effort to help make DNA testing available to all prisoners, is now described as a modern-day hero.
Winner of the American Academy of Arts and Letters'' Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction and of the Ernest Hemingway Foundation''s Citation for Fiction. An eleven-year-old heroine tells her unforgettable story with honesty, perceptivity, humor, and unselfconscious heroism. "The honesty of thought and eye and feeling and word!"--Eudora Welty; "A lovely, breathtaking, sometimes heart-wrenching first novel."--Walker Percy. A LITERARY GUILD SELECTION.
A guide to the temperate zone and high altitude ginger varieties that are perfectly at home in cooler climates. This is a black-and-white edition.
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