After a violent storm in the South Pacific in the year 1643, Roberto della Griva finds himself shipwrecked-on a ship. Swept from the Amaryllis, he has managed to pull himself aboard the Daphne, anchor
Yambo, a sixtyish rare-book dealer who lives in Milan, has suffered a loss of memory-he can remember the plot of every book he has ever read, every line of poetry, but he no longer knows his own name,
Eric Moore has a prosperous business, a comfortable home, a stable family life in a quiet town. Then, on an ordinary night, his teenage son Keith babysits Amy Giordano, the eight-year-old daughter of
Brilliant, fast-paced, and highly suspenseful, Tenderwire tells the story of a reckless young musician and her obsession with a very old violin. Eva Tyne leaves her home in Ireland for New York to pla
In this timeless survival story, four indentured servants escape their Russian Alaska work camp in a stolen canoe, only to face a harrowing journey down the Pacific Northwest coast. Battling unrelenti
In January 2002 Rory Stewart walked across Afghanistan-surviving by his wits, his knowledge of Persian dialects and Muslim customs, and the kindness of strangers. By day he passed through mountains co
A park ranger shares his experiences on the edge of civilization in the Sierras, including his confrontations with criminals and extreme sports enthusiasts, and his gruesome discovery of a female jogg
At large during the most colorful period in New Orleans' history, from just after the Louisiana Purchase through the War of 1812, privateers Jean and Pierre Laffite made life hell for Spanish merchant
When counterfeit prescription medicine started turning up in the nation's supply and threatening some of the sickest and weakest patients, Katherine Eban went in search of the story. What she found wa
From its roots as the quintessential Western pastime, rodeo has grown into an international, prime-time television sport. Steeped in tradition and spirit, the rodeo calls aspiring cowboys and cowgirl
More than twenty years ago William F. Buckley Jr. launched the dashing character of Blackford Oakes like a missile over the literary landscape. This newly minted CIA agent-brainy, bold, and complex-b
Clem Glass was a successful photojournalist, firm in the belief that photographs could capture truth and beauty. Until he went to Africa and witnessed the aftermath of a genocidal massacre. Clem retur
In the manner of W. G. Sebald's The Emigrants, Natives and Exotics follows three characters, linked by blood and legacy, as they wander a world scarred by colonialism. Transplanted halfway around t
An irreverent journey through the culinary world of the exotic, the bizarre, and the truly extraordinary, Gastronaut is equal parts cookbook and quest book. For your bedside or your stoveside, this h
Lighthousekeeping tells the tale of Silver ("My mother called me Silver. I was born part precious metal, part pirate."), an orphaned girl who is taken in by blind Mr. Pew, the mysterious and miraculo
Charles Simic has been widely celebrated for his brilliant poetic imagery; his social, political, and moral alertness; his uncanny ability to make the ordinary extraordinary; and not least, the sardon
With a distinguished career spanning more than sixty years, Richard Wilbur stands as one of America's preeminent men of letters. Collected Poems 1943-2004 is the comprehensive collection of Wilbur's
This book begins with "We're in Trouble," a suite of three stories that introduces its common theme: love darkening and persevering as it is tried by the cold fact of death. And in the vivid stories t
When Magnus Mills gives the world a shake, you never know what might fall out of his pockets," proclaims the Los Angeles Times. In his terse new tour de force of a tale, Mills gives history a sha
This is the story of four seasons in the life of Charles Wenmoth, a young lay preacher in Cornwall in 1870. Life is at its hardest, poverty is everywhere. As Charles crosses and recrosses the raw, be
ROCKET SCIENTIST KILLED IN PASADENA EXPLOSION screamed the headline of the Los Angeles Times. John Parsons, a maverick rocketeer who helped transform the rocket from a derided sci-fi plotline into a r
T he summer Michael Smolij turns seventeen, his father DEAN BAKOPOULOS, a former book-disappears. One by one other men also vanish from the seller, was named one of America's blue-collar neighborhood
A suspicious suicide calls Javier Falcón to a wealthy neighborhood on the outskirts of Seville in this sensational follow-up to Robert Wilson's thriller The Blind Man of Seville. Falcón beg
Cockroft, a faded composer and socialite, lives in self-imposed exile and fantasizes of true love and extravagant suicides. Rattling around his dilapidated farmhouse in the Italian countryside, his on
Is the growing influence of Spanish threatening to displace English in the United States? Are America's grammatical standards in serious decline? Has the media saturation of our culture homogenized o
A nine-year-old boy living in a New England mill town dreams of reuniting his separated parents after his mother catches his father having an affair and throws him out and the father makes nightly ret
With his elegant prose and perceptive imagination, the bestselling author of The Crimson Petal and the White creates a unique, self-contained world, where the perennial human drama plays out in all it
In this elegiac and luminous novel, which John Ashbery called "an amazing achievement" and Mary Gordon dubbed "a wholly original endeavor," Christine Schutt gives voice to the feast of memory, the my
When a girl falls into a deep and impenetrable sleep, the borders between her provincial French village and the peculiar, beguiling realm of her dreams begin to disappear: A fat woman sprouts delicate
Tragic, comic, and utterly honest, this extraordinary memoir is at once a great family saga and a magical self-portrait of a writer who witnessed the birth of a nation and lived through its turbulent
Less than a decade since they began working in the movies, Mark and Michael Polish have established themselves as critically acclaimed, award-winning independent filmmakers. Their innovative approach
A new novel by the author of Tea focuses on a family living in San Francisco, the approaching breakdown of a troubled adolescent boy, and their tribulations as they negotiate the difficulties of gay p
The Best American series has been the premier annual showcase for the country's finest short fiction and nonfiction since 1915. Each volume's series editor selects notable works from hundreds of perio
A turbulent, tragic story of domestic abuse from the bestselling author of The Pilot's Wife.Everyone believes that Maureen and Harrold English, two successful New York City journalists, have a happy,
What would you do if out of the blue, you received a letter from your first love? Sian Richards sees no reason why she can't write back to Charles Callahan. After all, it's been thirty years and they
PopCo tells the story of Alice Butler-a subversively smart girl in our commercial-soaked world who grows from recluse orphan to burgeoning vigilante, buttressed by mystery, codes, math, and the sense
Tertuliano Maximo Afonso is a divorced, depressed history teacher. To lift his spirits, a colleague suggests he rent a certain video. Tertuliano watches the film, unimpressed. But during the night, wh
Are you so sure about "assure," "ensure," and "insure" ? Can you determine whether a knob of butter is equivalent to a lump or a pat or a scosh? Can you say which word in the English language has the
The bestselling author of Slammerkin vividly brings to life the Beau Monde of late eighteenth-century England, turning the private drama of three celebrated Londoners into a robust, full-bodied portra
Winner of the Prix de Rome and the National Jewish Book Award, these ten stories and the title novella, "Ellis Island," exhibit tremendous range and versatility of style and technique, yet are closely
