What does it mean to be happy? Americans have had an obsession with “the pursuit of happiness” ever since the Founding Fathers enshrined it—along with life and liberty—as our
Kindness is the foundation of the world’s great religions and most-enduring philosophies. Why, then, does being kind feel so dangerous? If we crave kindness with such intensity, why is it a ple
“It’s a great irony that Israel was more secure as an idea than it’s ever been as a nation with an army.”In AD 70, when the Second Temple was destroyed, a handful of vis
A last of a group of settlers in a hardscrabble abandoned western town, self-declared sheriff Makepeace decides to reconnect with others after a visit from a traveling refugee but finds his sense of t
Michelle Huneven, Richard Russo once wrote, is “a writer of extraordinary and thrilling talent.” That talent explodes with her third book, Blame, a spellbinding novel of guilt and love, f
Winner of the 2004 Orange Prize for Fiction A Picador Original Trade PaperbackHortense Joseph arrives in London from Jamaica in 1948 with her life in her suitcase, her heart broken, her resolve intac
Summoned to the remote Icelandic-Canadian village of her youth, Manhattan photographer Freya Morris reunites with her ancient grandmother and remembers her childhood summers with her troubled aunt and
An intense, mordantly funny collection of short fiction from the author of Home Land and The Ask. A man with an "old soul" finds himself at a Times Square peep show, looking for more than just a littl
A young mother is astounded by her four-year-old's increasingly bizarre behavior, which is marked by night terrors, a deathly fear of water, and a fixation with a photograph of an Irish seaside town w
With an Introduction by Salman Rushdie For more than fifty years, The Paris Review has brought us revelatory and revealing interviews with the literary lights of our age. This critically
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE CRIME BOOKPatrick Rush is a single father, unhappy with his career, devoted to his young son buthaunted by the loss of his wife, when he joins a local writing group. In
"One of the first works of art with the courage to live up to our historical moment. Brilliant, terrifying, and much too close for comfort."--Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine and No Logo In
A heartbreaking, heartwarming, and oddlywhimsical memoir from acclaimed indie rocker Mark Oliver Everett of the EelsHow does one young man survive the deaths of his entire family and manage to make s
With no witnesses and no weapon, it seems like the case of the one-legged homeless man found lying in a cul-de-sac on São JoãoHill, shot through the heart, will remain unsolved. But C
At twenty-one, just as she was starting to comprehend the puzzles of adulthood, Sarah Manguso was faced with another: a wildly unpredictable autoimmune disease that appeared suddenly and tore through
Ian Frazier is unquestionably one of America's greatest living humorists, a writer with a distinct, generous sensibility and a thousand different voices. His work is hilarious, elegant, and piercing,
A TOP TEN FAVORITE BOOK OF THE YEAR--MICHIKO KAKUTANI, THE NEW YORK TIMESA ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH BEST MEMOIR OF THE YEARINCLUDES AN AUTHOR INTERVIEW WITH LESLEY STAHLMarie Brenner's extraordinary m
Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You is the story of James Sveck, a sophisticated, vulnerable young man with a deep appreciation for the world and no idea how to live in it. James is eighteen, the
He is a brilliant math Professor with a peculiar problem - ever since a traumatic head injury, he has lived with only eighty minutes of short-term memory.She is an astute young Housekeeper, with a te
Set largely in rural Louisiana, Tim Gautreaux's masterful debut story collection follows men and women whose ordinary lives reach a point of rupture, a moment when convention gives way to crisis and
The author of Eve's Apple and an avid bird-watcher looks at America's fascination with birding and the diverse roles of birds--historical, literary, scientific, and spiritual--in a culture caught in t
Arthur King has lived in New York for all his adult life when his wife commits suicide one afternoon while he's away. Left alone with two teenage children, overwhelmed by the prospect of city life wi
With the country in the grip of economic malaise, Maisie Dobbs is relieved to accept an apparently straightforward assignment to investigate a potential land purchase. Her inquiries take her to a pic
A New York Times Notable Book of 2007Cleopatra's Nose is an exuberant gathering of essays and profiles, representing twenty years of Judith Thurman's writing, particularly her fascination with human
A Chicago Tribune Favorite Book of 2007The internationally acclaimed bestselling author of Smilla's Sense of Snow returns with this "engrossing, beautifully written tale of suspense . . . captivating
From the author of Smilla's Sense of Snow comes this highly imaginative novel, "wonderful in scope . . . crammed with Danish history, social realism, satire, magic realism, high romance, and sexual g
At the end of what is (she cannot help observing) an extraordinary life, Elisabeth Rother has decided to write her memoirs. She recounts her narrow escape with her Jewish husband from the Nazis, and
First published in Hungary in 1986 after a five-year battle with censors, Péter Nádas's A Book of Memories is a modern classic, a multi-layered narrative that tells three parallel stories o
In the fall of 2005 acclaimed writer Mary Morris set off down the Mississippi River in a battered old houseboat called The River Queen, with two river rats named Tom and Jerry and an ailing, irascibl
Jincy Willett is the high priestess of dark comedy. The classic stories in this collection cut through every convention, every idea of normalcy, with empathy and fearless wit, undermining all the old
Winner of the CWA Duncan Lawrie Dagger AwardA Booklist Best Crime Novel of the YearShaken by a recent scrape with death, big-city detective Joe Cashin is posted to a quiet town in on the
Franklyn Shivs is a Wisconsin farm boy with a mind too vigorous, too full of desire, for a life on the farm. Leaving home as a young man, he heads south to turn-of-the-century Chicago, a city untamed
New York City tabloid columnist Peter Wren cannot resist the intriguing story of beautiful Caroline Crowley, the young widow of a brilliant film director, who approaches him at a crowded party with a
Salley Vickers's novel opens with the arrival of a new patient in the office of therapist David McBride. The woman, Elizabeth Cruikshank, has just attempted suicide. As the two begin to explore her h
An old man awakens, disoriented, in an unfamiliar chamber with no memory of who he is or what has happened. Identified only as Mr. Blank, he appears to be a prisoner under surveillance. A mysterious
Captures the world of American Muslims in a post-9/11 world to describe the struggle they confront to reconcile the tenets of their faith with a permissive American society, in a collection of dramati
Amid the leafy avenues and comfortable houses of the English suburbs, the residents of Arlington Park live out the dubious accomplishments of their ordinary lives in a world rife with contentment and
A New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the YearOne of Publishers Weekly's 100 Best Books of the YearKatharine Hepburn was her own creation. She charmed the public with the image of
Winner of the Nero Wolfe AwardIt is 1921 and Mary Russell--Sherlock Holmes's brilliant apprentice, now an Oxford graduate with a degree in theology--is on the verge of acquiring a sizable inher
A Chicago Tribune Best Book of the YearBy almost all measures, Kansas City's Central High School is just another failing inner-city school--with abysmal test scores, only one in three graduate.
