As an unloved foster child on a farm in rural Iceland, Olaf Karason has only one consolation: the belief that one day he will be a great poet. The indifference and contempt of most of the people arou
Fletch, TooAfter a few delays and without the benefit of a rehearsal, it looks like Fletch is finally getting hitched. It’s a small affair, just a few friends, the bride’s parents, the groom’s mother,
The Internet revolution has come. Some say it has gone. In The Future of Ideas, Lawrence Lessig explains how the revolution has produced a counterrevolution of potentially devastating power and effect
Burke is back, but still lurking in the shadows, unable to return home. He is prowling the unfamiliar streets of Portland, Oregon, in search of a runaway teen. By all accounts, Rosebud Carlin is a ha
In her play Yellowman, a finalist for the 2001 Pulitzer Prize, Alma and Eugene have known each other since they were young children. As their friendship blossoms into love, Alma struggles to free her
When Princeton historian D. Graham Burnett answered his jury duty summons, he expected to spend a few days catching up on his reading in the court waiting room. Instead, he finds himself thrust into a
Anna and Claire are two bantering, scheming "women of fashion" who have long lived together on the fringes of upper-class society. Anna has just become the mistress of a wealthy man, from whom she has
In the nine breathtaking stories that make up her celebrated tenth collection, Alice Munro achieves new heights, creating narratives that loop and swerve like memory, and conjuring up characters as th
From his earliest days, Oliver Sacks - the distinguished neurologist who is also one of the most remarkable storytellers of our time - was irresistibly drawn to understanding the natural world. Born
In this meticulously researched, unflinching, and reasoned study, National Book Award finalist David I. Kertzer presents shocking revelations about the role played by the Vatican in the development of
Originally published in 1942 and now rediscovered to international acclaim, this taut and exquisitely structured novel by the Hungarian master Sandor Marai conjures the melancholy glamour of a decayin
With the same emotional generosity and effortlessly compelling storytelling that made All Over But the Shoutin’ a national bestseller, Rick Bragg continues his personal history of the Deep South. Thi
Tender and satiric, hilarious and humane, Dogwalker plunks readers down in a land of misfits and the circumstantially strange–where one young man buys drugs from a dealer who locks his customers in a
In this uniquely brilliant and insightful book, acclaimed essayist and psychoanalyst Adam Phillips meditates on the notion of escape in our society and in ourselves.No one can escape the desire and ne
With her trademark humor and warmth, the beloved author of The Ladies' Man and The Inn at Lake Devine explores going home again; about finding light in the dark corners of one's inhospitable past; abo
Set in the projects of Los Angeles, California, Edgewater Angels chronicles the adolescence of Sunny Toomer, a streetwise young man endlessly sandwiched between the right and wrong thing to do. In a n
The Yellow Cross is a harrowing tale of a desperate people in a small corner of France who defied the kings of Europe and the Pope. The Cathars, whose religion was based on the Gospels but contradicte
What conceptual blind spot kept the ancient Greeks (unlike the Indians and Maya) from developing a concept of zero? Why did St. Augustine equate nothingness with the Devil? What tortuous means did 1
Gather any group of actresses, from students to stars, and someone will inevitably ask, "Where are all the great roles for women?" The roles are right here, in this magnificently diverse collection of
In these coolly observant essays, Joan Didion looks at the American political process and at "that handful of insiders who invent, year in and year out, the narrative of public life." Through the deco
Originally published at the beginning of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, a time when rationalist criticism of religious belief was perhas at its peak, William Law's A Serious Call to a Devout an
In the 1950s, a series of dams was proposed along the Brazos River in north-central Texas. For John Graves, this project meant that if the stream’s regimen was thus changed, the beautiful and sometim
Every autumn, the monarch butterflies east of the Rockies migrate from as far north as Canada to Mexico. Memory is not their guide — no one butterfly makes the round trip — but each year somehow find
The adventure writer Ann Jones tells the story of her overland journey, with the British photographer Kevin Muggleton, from one end of Africa to the other. Their purpose: to reach the southernmost ti
Fletch and the Widow BradleyWhen Fletch finds a wallet with $10,000 in cash inside, he doesn’t realize it’s the last piece of good luck he’s going to see for a while. Because when he calls in to the N
From the acclaimed author of Woman in the Dunes comes Secret Rendezvous, the bizarrely erotic and comic adventures of a man searching for his missing wife in a mysteriously vast underground hospital.F
From the prodigiously talented A. L. Kennedy comes a flamboyantly stylish and fiercely emotional novel about fathers and daughters, creation and self-destruction, and love’s paradoxical power to heal
“Written with her usual vigor and imagination...Mary Renault has a great talent.”–The New York Times Book ReviewAlexander’s beauty, strength, and defiance were apparent from birth, but his boyhood hon
In this savagely audacious novel, James Ellroy plants a pipe bomb under the America in the 1960s, lights the fuse, and watches the shrapnel fly. On November 22, 1963 three men converge in Dallas. Thei
“They have sent me here because of what happened on the pylon.”When Clodagh Brown writes these words at the age of nineteen, she believes that she is leaving behind the traumatic events of her youth.
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST “Wonderfully descriptive. . . . Dunn [has a] tremendous imagination.”– The New York Times Book Review The introduction, discussion questions, suggested reading list, and a
Hilarious, dark, and thoroughly entertaining, Getting a Life proves Helen Simpson to be one of the finest observers of women on the edge. Set in and around contemporary London, these nine stories expl
Brilliant, inspired, and gloriously erudite, Literature and the Gods is the culmination of Roberto Calasso’s lifelong study of the gods in the human imagination. By uncovering the divine whisper that
Given that the suns of Draco stretch almost sixteen light years from end to end, it stands to reason that the cost of transportation is the most important factor of the 32nd century. And since Illyrio
“The first ten years of my life I was not black.” Thus begins this startlingly eloquent and beautiful tale based on the true story of Kwasi Boachi, a 19th- century African prince who was sent with his
Set in the middle of the twenty-first century, The Simulacra is the story of an America where the whole government is a fraud and the President is an android. Against this backdrop Dr. Superb, the sol
When CIA agent Chuck Rittersdorf and his psychiatrist wife, Mary, file for divorce, they have no idea that in a few weeks they’ll be shooting it out on Alpha III M2, the distant moon ruled by various
When Laura Fraser's husband leaves her for his high school sweetheart, she takes off, on impulse, for Italy, hoping to leave some of her sadness behind. There, on the island of Ischia, she meets M., a
When Ambrose Tree is summoned by his ancient uncle to the brooding mansion Drogo Hall, he suspects it’s to hear the old man’s dying words and then collect a sizable inheritance. He has no idea he is a
This extraordinary debut novel from Whiting Writers’ Award winner John Wray is a poetic portrait of a life redeemed at one of the darkest moments in world history.Twenty years after deserting the army
