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"A tonic . . . Splendid . . . A respite . . . A summer cocktail of a book."—Washington Post
"Unforgettable . . . Behind her brilliantly witty and uplifting message is a remarkable vulnerability and candor that reminds us that we are not alone in our struggles—and that we can, against all odds, get through them."—Lori Gottlieb, New...
Ivan Doig grew up in the rugged wilderness of western Montana among the sheepherders and denizens of small-town saloons and valley ranches. What he deciphers from his past with piercing clarity is not only a raw sense of land and how it shapes us, but also of the ties to our...
Self-regard, in the works of Annie Ernaux, is always an excruciatingly painful and exact process. Here, she revisits the peculiar kind of self-fulfillment possible when we examine ourselves in the aftermath of a love affair, and sometimes, even, through the eyes of the lost beloved.
From 1918 to 1941, even as she penned masterpiece upon masterpiece, Virginia Woolf kept a diary. She poured into it her thoughts, feelings, concerns, objections, interests, and disappointments—resulting in twenty-six volumes that give unprecedented insight into...
This biography of the brilliant author of War and Peace and Anna Karenina “should become the first resort for everyone drawn to its titanic subject” (Booklist, starred review).
In November 1910, Count Lev Tolstoy died at a remote Russian railway station. At the time of his death, he was the most famous man in Russia, more revered than the tsar, with a growing international following. Born
A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
New York Times Book Review • The New Yorker • Entertainment Weekly • Time • Washington Post • San Francisco Chronicle • Chicago Tribune • Christian Science Monitor • Slate • St. Louise Post-Dispatch • Cleveland Plain Dealer • Seattle Times • NBCC Award Finalist
Mary Karr's unforgettable sequel to
...One day, Richard LeMieux had a happy marriage, a palatial home, and took $40,000 Greek vacations. LeMieux's quiet determination and his almost pious willingness to live with his situation are only a part of this politically and socially charged memoir. The real story of an all-too-common American condition, this is a heartfelt and stirring read.The next, he was living out of a van with only his dog, Willow, for company. This astonishingly frank
...11) A Man's Place
A New York Times Notable Book
Annie Ernaux's father died exactly two months after she passed her practical examination for a teaching certificate. Barely educated and valued since childhood strictly for his labor, Ernaux's father had grown into a hard, practical man who showed his family little affection.
Narrating his slow ascent towards material comfort, Ernaux's cold observation...
12) Simple Passion
A New York Times Notable Book
In her spare, stark style, Annie Ernaux documents the desires and indignities of a human heart ensnared in an all-consuming passion.
Blurring the line between fact and fiction, an unnamed narrator attempts to plot the emotional and physical course of her 2 year relationship with a married foreigner where every word, event, and person either provides a...
13) Papillon
"A modern classic of courage and excitement." —The New Yorker • The source for the iconic prison-escape film starring Steve McQueen
Henri Charrière, nicknamed "Papillon," for the butterfly tattoo on his chest, was convicted in Paris in 1931 of a murder he did not commit. Sentenced to life imprisonment in the penal colony of French Guiana, he became obsessed with one goal: escape. After planning and executing
...A sparkling biography of the poet and artist Edward Lear by the award-winning biographer Jenny Uglow
Edward Lear, the renowned English artist, musician, author, and poet, lived a vivid, fascinating life, but confessed, "I hardly enjoy any one thing on earth while it is present." He was a man in a hurry, "running about on railroads" from London to country estates and boarding steamships to Italy, Corfu, India, and Palestine. He is still
The tragic story of the Brontë family has been told many times: the half-mad, repressive father; the drunken, drug-addicted brother; wildly romantic Emily; unrequited Anne; and "poor Charlotte." But is any of it true? These caricatures of the...
16) Winter Journal
The remarkable journey of an award-winning writer struck with a rare and devastating affliction that prevented him from reading even his own writing
One hot midsummer morning, novelist Howard Engel picked up his newspaper from his front step and discovered he could no longer read it. The letters had mysteriously jumbled themselves into something that looked like Cyrillic one moment and Korean the next. While he slept, Engel had experienced
From American master Richard Ford, a memoir: his first work of nonfiction, a stirring narrative of memory and parental love
How is it that we come to consider our parents as people with rich and intense lives that include but also exclude us? Richard Ford's parents—Edna, a feisty, pretty Catholic-school girl with a difficult past; and Parker, a sweet-natured, soft-spoken traveling salesman—were rural Arkansans
...From iconic American humorist James Thurber, a celebrated and poignant memoir about his years at The New Yorker with the magazine’s unforgettable founder and longtime editor, Harold Ross
“Extremely entertaining. . . . life at The New Yorker emerges as a lovely sort of pageant of lunacy, of practical jokes, of feuds and foibles. It is an affectionate picture of scamps playing their games around a man who,
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