Fiction: literary and general non-genre

Book SynopsisWhen thirty-two-year-old Eric Boulanger returns to his Vermont hometown to care for his mother, he attempts to revive the town's failing economy by drumming up a contest that will offer a free wedding. The winner is Bostonian Ryan Toscano whose fiancé has left to become a Jesuit, but whose beloved, outspoken, Jewish grandmother insists she find a substitute in time for the gala affair. Eric's well-intentioned brainstorm sets three millennials on an –at times hilarious at times painful– odyssey of self-discovery, one, full of surprises amid deceptions, that forces them and an entire town to confront their notions of faith and death, love and acceptance.

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Book SynopsisSet in the small town of Grenville, Ontario, a setting perhaps familiar to the reader from the author's previous novel Cadillac Road, this story progresses from the 1950s through the 1980s. In 1940, five-year-old Martin Thorton fell from the family's apartment balcony, suffering catastrophic and permanent injuries. His accident plays a role in everything that happens afterwards -- his marginalization growing up a disabled person, his mother's guilt and unfailing devotion, his sister's alienation. Told from the point of view of his sister Gretchen, and his friend Donna, this is Martin's story.

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Book SynopsisDaniella believes her lost mother is a World War II spy, but is terrorized by a dream of a war-torn jungle, raining fire. At forty, with her life and career stalled, Daniella is visited by four dead ancestors, who try to help her put her life back together. When this fails, propelled by curiosity about her recurring dream, she travels to the nuclear testing grounds at the Bikini Islands, to find out her mother's real role in the war and its aftermath.Trade Review"This is a fascinating novel which spins an amazing web. Daniela remembers Gauguin: Be mysterious and you will be happy. Marello spins plenty of mystery, hallucination and romance. This roller-coaster of a novel is a page-turner that will keep you on your toes. Highly recommended!" -- Clarence Major, author of Chicago Heat and Other Stories"Gauguins Moon equates in style, invention, research and empathy with Margaret Atwoods and Gail Godwins work. It has their imagination, and incisive self-examination. Young Daniella is visited by dead people: her mother, her aunt, and friends Elaine, and Andrew -- ancestors all, back from the dead, and visible to Daniella and her friend Sandy. Daniella accepts their help to find out more about the apocalyptic dream that wont leave her. Images in her paintings begin to match experiences with a hydrogen bomb explosion in the Central Pacifics Bikini Atoll, unleashed by the U.S. Government in the 1950s on a culture and ecosystem. Until she finds their source, these dreams frustrate her instincts for love and her sense of identity. In the end, Daniella finds out how self acceptance can be obtained." -- Paul Nelson, author of Refrigerator Church"Laura Marellos latest novel, Gauguins Moon, seethes with an intoxicating blend of wit, pathos, and hilarity that keeps us laughing even as it confronts us with disturbing truths -- both personal and political. Her narrator, Daniella, is a 40-year-old artist who wakes one morning to find her home invaded by her dead mother, dead aunt, and two dead lovers, all stylish people -- my mother and Aunt Charlotte in the l940s, Upper West Side, Chanel / Houbignant, weve won-the-war-and-dominated-Europe sort of way; and Andrew and Elaine in the l980s, Laurel Canyon, Calvin Klein and Armani, greed-isnt-good-but-it-looks-good sort of way. Over the ensuing pages we move in and out of Daniellas past, her dreams, and her artistic visions (half-reclining terracotta women, for example, who are neither here nor there, like me; a mysterious cliff-top doorway with a view of ocean and sky; a landscape of rain and fire). We follow her as -- aided and abetted by her dead companions -- she abruptly leaves the East Coast for California, delves into her past, and finally travels to Micronesia, where she begins to uncover the sources of her lifelong disorientation. Gauguins Moon is a book about the interweaving of life and art, the power of dreams and images, and our sacred responsibility for one another." -- Constance Solari, author of Sophies Fire

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Book SynopsisDori's narrative is a heart-touching and zany blend of actual events in the life of a young Boxer. With edgy charm, she takes us on a romp through her world in such a way we can't help but reconsider our lives. Through her we get a dog's-eye view on human exploitation of animals. This unique approach is hauntingly effective.

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Book SynopsisA young, mixed-race composer, raised without meaningful connections to his Chinese heritage and struggling with identity issues, travels to China in search of his long-missing uncle, an uncle who vanished in the aftermath of Tiananmen Square. An Idea About My Dead Uncle--winner of the inaugural Guernica Prize for the best unpublished novel manuscript--is about the identities we choose and the ones that are imposed on us. It is about being on the outside looking in. It is about dealing with pain through the artistic process. It is about delusion and healing. It is about the power of narrative. According to Gabriella Goliger, winner of the 2011 City of Ottawa Literary Award for Fiction for her novel Girl Unwrapped and a juror for the Guernica Literary Prize: A witty, sharp-edged, finely-crafted story about a young man struggling with identity issues, which causes relationship disasters and a quest for his long lost uncle in China. The introspective but straightforward narrative eventually plunges into the surreal, mirroring the madness that can result from an uncompromising search for self.Trade Review"Wilson's story is what every novel should bea portal to the imagination of its creator.we can expect much more from this talented author". -- Ian Thomas Shaw, Ottawa Review of Books"K.R. Wilsons remarkable novel is smart, funny, unpredictable and engaging. Imbued with insights on family, identity, relationships and music, An Idea About My Dead Uncle brims with suspense and adventure, intriguing characters and fine storytelling". -- Cora Siré, author of Behold Things Beautiful"K.R. Wilson turns the usual quest-for-identity tale on its head in this bold and compelling novel of a young man struggling with ambivalence towards his ethnic heritage and the traumas of family dysfunction. The story begins with beguiling lightness and irony, swerves into tragi-farce and descends into fantastical chaos as the narrator literally loses himself through his obsessive search for his dead uncle. Wilsons prose is playful, vivid, richly layered and poignant. A story that throws many curve balls at the reader, including big questions about the meaning and/or absurdity of life". -- Gabriella Goliger, winner of the 2011 City of Ottawa Literary Award for Fiction

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Book SynopsisOn a quest to rescue his community from a fiery demise, possum and poet Zak, seeks assistance from rodents in the North and sets out on a journey into an ancient forest. But separated from his own surroundings and his bob-cat companion, Sena, he quickly loses his sense of direction and becomes hopelessly lost in the wilderness. Here, Zak enters a world of self-discovery as he struggles to survive starvation, predation, drowning, illness and ice. Meanwhile, his forest-folk comrades he left behind suffer the menace of drought, wildfire and the malicious deeds of Mungo, an indomitable villain actively ravaging precious ecosystems. As Zak's feathered and furry friends await such an uncertain future, they formulate the theory that Mungo and the others of his species have lost cognizance of what they are, causing them to become "familiar" and bring havoc upon the forest -- all, because they were never taught to use their noses as a reference. But unbeknownst to everyone, the havoc originates inside a dark world whose terrifying resident has, itself, become familiar; and Zak will play a key role in events that ultimately end in a savage showdown.

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Book SynopsisTragedy at Montreal's End of the World restaurant. A little marriage fatigue, a cottage to sell and a woman in cashmere: suddenly twenty seven years of conjugal life are swept away. Jean-Charles has left his wife. And with her goes the charm the restaurant possessed, where simple food was served to simple people. Sleepless Nights and Days of Glory, the third volume in Hélène Rioux's Fragments of the World series, opens with the theme of abandonment and betrayal, and then takes the reader around the world.Trade Review"The End of the World is the restaurant on St. Zotique Street in Montreal, where the fascinating adventure of the Fragments of the World began. Hélène Rioux has added a third part: summer solstice. On this longest day of the year, we follow the trajectory of characters encountered in Wednesday Night at the End of the World and Wandering Souls in Paradise Lost. Passing through these same places Montreal, Bulgaria, Mexico City, Spain they will be guided through the spectrum of life by a writer in stunning form." -- Monique Roy, Châtelaine"A breathless race with pauses exactly when you need to catch your breath. But were anxious to discover what awaits just around the corner dénouements, amusing situations, overlapping stories, and unexpected recurrences leading to other avenues. Eyes, ears, and taste: all the senses are awakened in this feast of this novel, as in the previous ones. A must-read." -- Hans Jürgen Grief, Entre les lignes"Nuits blanches et jours de gloire reminds us that the novelist is a fine observer of history, the current state of the world, and the human condition in all its complexity." -- Suzanne Giguère, Le Devoir

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Book SynopsisShattered Fossils, a collection of short stories, takes its title from themes of the irretrievable past, particularly within Ark of Gopherwood, in which the narrator describes his friend as someone who has pieced together elements of the historical past, to create a more complete picture of history. From the short story in which a character enters a "painted sidewalk," the collection moves into an exploration of the creation of memoir and memory. Some of the stories, but especially one about a 'bard,' set in Montreal, another set in Iceland and one set off the coast of England, contain ghosts. The last is told from a ghost's perspective. Her husband, a mathematician, has called her from the shadows. While she was alive, he insisted time was immutable. Now he is attempting to solve the equation that will bring her back.

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Book Synopsis "Two friends two friends, how close could they get without being one man … one in love with a ghost, the other … longed for the son who'd more than likely already become a ghost.” RubÉn Arenal, nicknamed Rocket by his close friends and family, and Ernesto Cisneros are longtime friends, as close as brothers, living in Mexico's northern state of Chihuahua.  RubÉn is a potter who lives alone in his studio apartment. Ernesto is married to Guadalupe and they have one son, Coyuco, who is training to be a teacher. Out of these bald facts spins magic. RubÉn falls in love with an eerily lifelike mannequin in a shop window, widely rumored to be more flesh and bone than mere artifice and modelled on a local beauty nicknamed La Pascualita, who died young many decades ago. RubÉn trails after her ghost while Ernesto leaves their hometown to go in search of his son, kidnapped and disappeared by the police while out on a student protest with forty-two of his comrades from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers' College.

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Book SynopsisOnce Our Lives is the true story of four generations of Chinese women and how their lives were threatened by powerful and cruel ancient traditions, historic upheavals, and a man whose fate – cursed by an ancient superstition – dramatically altered their destinies. The book takes the reader on an exotic journey filled with luxurious banquets, lost jewels, babies sold in opium dens, kidnappings by pirates, and a desperate flight from death in the desert – seen through the eyes of a man for whom the truth would spell disaster and a lonely, beautiful girl with three identities.

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Book SynopsisIt is 1870. When amateur archaeologist Adam Carver and his loyal but obdurate retainer Quint are visited in their lodgings in London's Doughty Street by an attractive young woman, their landlady is not pleased. The visitor's arrival pitches Carver and Quint headlong into an elaborate mystery which comes to centre on the existence (or not) of a lost text in Ancient Greek, one that may reveal the whereabouts of the treasure hoard of Philip II of Macedonia.Two deaths soon ensue as master and manservant follow what clues they can grasp in the roughest and most genteel parts of the teeming metropolis, with the whiff of cordite and blackmail never far from their nostrils. The scene shifts to Athens and the wilder fastness of a Greece gripped by political unrest as Carver and Quint join forces with Adam's former Cambridge tutor in an attempt to track down the elusive text. But nothing is quite what it seems, and no one involved is prepared for the final, shocking denouement amidst the extraordinary hilltop monasteries of Meteora...Trade ReviewA richly textured, thoroughly relishable helping of ripe Victoriana -- Phil Baker * The Sunday Times *It's entertaining stuff - knowing, but never too knowing - and Rennison's love of Victorian slang reflects a broader linguistic flair * Guardian *It's got the lot: mystery, murder, theft, blackmail, infamy, treachery, bandits, a beautiful maiden, heroes, villains, romance and adventure in bucket loads -- Sarah Broadhurst * Bookseller *Bristles with an energy and inventiveness that positively leap off the page... Readers may well be looking to spend more time in the company of Carver and Quint -- Barry Forshaw, Crimetime.co.ukA wonderfully researched, deftly written tale of deering-do * Bookseller *

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Book Synopsis[Senior's] vivid characters [capture] this chaotic era with a lively sense of how it must have felt to those living through it - The TimesA court without a kingdom, a kingdom without a king...England, 1652: since Charles I's execution the land has remained untethered, the people longing for change. When Patience Johnson meets preacher Sidrach Simmonds, she believes her destiny is to become his wife and help him spread the Lord's word. Simmonds sees things quite differently. Patience's brother Will has been bestowed the job of lawyer to Oliver Cromwell. Tasked with aiding England's most powerful man, he must try to overcome his grief after the loss of his wife. Then Sam Challoner, Will's brother-in-law, returns unannounced after years in exile, forcing Will and Patience to question their loyalties: one to a ruler, the other, a spouse. Who do they choose to save? Themselves, their loved ones or their country...Trade ReviewThere are echoes of The Miniaturist in The Tyrant's Shadow... a gripping journey that twists and turns to the very final page. This is refined historical fiction at its very best. * Elizabeth Fremantle *An extraordinarily good historical novel by an author at the top of her game... If there's any justice in the world, it should be a bestseller. * Andrew Taylor *Fresh and fearless historical fiction set in a fascinating era. And featuring top swearing. Loved it. * Anna Mazzola *A satisfying tale of romance, politics and old-fashioned adventure. * Sunday Times (Ireland) *A terrific read... confidently written * Daily Mail *Compulsively page-turning and highly recommended * The Historical Novels review/Historical Novel Society *[Senior's] vivid characters [capture] this chaotic era with a lively sense of how it must have felt to those living through it * The Times *Compulsively page-turning and highly recommended * Historical Novels Review *

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Book SynopsisThe discovery of centuries old human bones; a haunted 12th century house; a medieval legend spawning a modern cult... Merrily must piece together a most insidious mystery.'Few writers blend the ancient and supernatural with the modern and criminal better than Rickman.' - GuardianWhen autumn storms blast Hereford, centuries-old human bones are found amongst the roots of a tree blown down on the city's Castle Green. But why have they been stolen? At the nearby Cathedral, another storm is building around a new, modernising bishop who believes that if the Church is to survive it must phase out irrelevant archaic practices. Not good news for Merrily Watkins, consultant on the paranormal or, as it used to be known, diocesan exorcist. Especially as she's now presented with the job at its most medieval. In the moody countryside on the edge of Wales, a rambling 12th-century house is thought to be haunted. Although its new owners don't believe in ghosts, they do believe in spiritual darkness and the need for exorcism. But their approach to Merrily is oblique and guarded. No-one can be told - least of all, the new bishop. Merrily's discovery of the house's links with the medieval legend of a man who resisted mortality threatens to expose the hidden history of a more modern cult and its trail of insidious abuse. A trail that may not be closed.Trade ReviewCompassionate, original and sharply contemporary, Rickman's crime series is one of the best around * Spectator on the Merrily Watkins series *Ancient history, violent deaths, feuds, intrigues and murder. A most original sleuth * The Times on the Merrily Watkins series *Few writers blend the ancient and supernatural with the modern and criminal better than Rickman * Guardian on the Merrily Watkins series *First rate crime with demons that go bump in the night * Daily Mail on the Merrily Watkins series *

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Book SynopsisOne night, Akram Khan walks out of his house towards an appointed time and place where he is supposed to detonate a bomb that will end his life and that of many innocent bystanders. As he wanders through the town he encounters Grace, whose life has been marred just as his has, forming an unlikely closeness borne of need and necessity.Akram tells Grace about his seemingly inexorable journey towards radicalization: a childhood within the tight-knit Pakistani community, his complex friendships among outcasts, his disastrous years in the army, and his empty arranged marriage to a woman who remains a stranger. Delicately drawn, Akram's War is an honest and shocking kaleidoscopic portrait of contemporary Britain, and of the ways in which the twists and turns of fate can scar and mark a life.

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Book SynopsisIt was the Autumn of 1969, and Italy exploded. Across the north of the country, factory workers stormed out on strike, demanding better pay and working conditions. The slogan "We Want Everything" rang through the streets. Italy's "Hot Autumn" had begun.In Nanni Balestrini's fictionalized account of the uprising, a young worker from Italy's impoverished south arrives at Fiat's Mirafiori factory in Torino, where he barely scrapes by with fourteen hour days of backbreaking work. His frustration is palpable, and soon he is agitating again his bosses for fun and giving himself minor injuries to win sick leave. Soon enough, he is swept up by a snowballing worker movement that leads to months of continuous strikes at Mirafiori. Eventually, the conflict bubbles out of the factory. The growing pressure having produced an inevitable crack, the streets are lined with barricades, and tear gas wafts into private homes.Introduced by Rachel Kushner, author of the critically acclaimed The Flamethrowers, We Want Everything is an explosive account of a revolution that would clear the way for another decade of radical unrest.Trade ReviewIn this fierce, compelling novel, Balestrini has found a way to individualise the universal, and universalise the individual, creating a document of the Italian labour struggles of the 1970s that has great value both as art and history. Balestrini becomes a channel for the working-class narrator, who stands for all the Southern masses who come north to the car factories to participate in the Italian 'economic miracle'. It's a book which charted a new course for fiction, one that deserves further exploration. -- Haru Kunzru, author of White TearsA fine example of a literary use of expressions that were then burgeoning in factories and mass meetings, caught between student unrest and worker fury. -- Umberto Eco, author of The Name of the RoseOne of the best novels of the year . Nothing could seem further from or more relevant to our historical moment. * Chicago Tribune *As demands arise again that echo the demands of the period-less work, more pay, more leisure, guaranteed income - We Want Everything sends a stirring reminder that these are not new demands, and that although it is a new generation rising to the challenge, it is the same fundamental struggle that continues * PopMatters *

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Book Synopsis'A pageturner packed with family secrets and Arctic adventure' Dundee Courier How do you solve the mysteries of a love frozen in time?Caroline Gillan and her new husband Alasdair have moved back to Kelly Castle, his family estate in the wilds of Scotland. Stuck caring for their baby and trying to avoid her opinionated mother-in-law, Caroline feels lonely and adrift.But while sorting through old papers, Caroline stumbles across a century-old mystery which sparks her back to life. There is one Gillan bride who has disappeared from history. No photos or records of her exist. The only certainty is that she had a legitimate child: Alasdair's grandmother.As Caroline unearths a strange love story that stretches as far as the Arctic circle, her curiosity about the missing bride turns into an obsession. And when a body is found in the grounds of the castle, Caroline begins an investigation which could change the course of her life forever . . .From the wilds of Scotland to the glaciers of the Arctic, A Woman Made of Snow is a mesmerising tale of how one woman's past might hold the key to another's future.*Praise for Elisabeth Gifford's gorgeously atmospheric, uplifting novels:'Gorgeously written and devastating' Kate Riordan'One of the best novels I've read' Gill Paul'Desperately romantic' Katie Fforde'Compelling' Sarah Maine 'Gorgeous, melancholy' The Times'A glorious novel. You won't be able to put it down for a minute' Suellen Dainty'An undeniably haunting love story' Sunday Times'A moving story, beautifully told' Tim PearTrade ReviewThe perfect mix of gripping plot and lyrical writing * Good Housekeeping *Absorbing * Prima *Secrets come creeping back to the surface in this chilling tale * Woman’s Own *Mesmerising * Herald *A thought-provoking, satisfying and enjoyable story to read ... [a] captivating, frequently moving story * New Books Magazine *A gorgeous, melancholy love story * The Times, praise for The Lost Lights of St Kilda *Desperately romantic, lyrically written and with a fascinating plot. * Katie Fforde, praise for The Lost Lights of St Kilda *I loved this book. Beautifully written and descriptive... The twisted threads weave an engaging plot which takes us on a trail of human courage and measures the cost of betrayal. Set in the last poignant years of life on remote St Kilda and in war-torn Europe, it paints both worlds with a vividness that is wholly convincing. * Sarah Maine, praise for The Lost Lights of St Kilda *The characters are exquisitely drawn, and the slowly emerging love story rings entirely true. This is one of the best novels I've read in a long while, a real jewel. * Gill Paul, praise for The Lost Lights of St Kilda *

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Book SynopsisA moving work of fiction from one of the most important writers of postwar Austrian and German literature. Born in 1921 to a Jewish mother, Ilse Aichinger (1921–2016) survived World War II in Vienna, while her twin sister Helga escaped with one of the last Kindertransporte to England in 1938. Many of their relatives were deported and murdered. Those losses make themselves felt throughout Aichinger’s writing, which since her first and only novel, The Greater Hope, in 1948, has highlighted displacement, estrangement, and a sharp skepticism toward language. By 1976, when she published Bad Words in German, her writing had become powerfully poetic, dense, and experimental. This volume presents the whole of the original Bad Words in English for the first time, along with a selection of Aichinger’s other short stories of the period; together, they demonstrate her courageous effort to create and deploy a language unmarred by misleading certainties, preconceived rules, or implicit ideologies.Trade Review"That this text holds its sonic magic in translation is a testament both to the extraordinary ears and poetic wisdom of the translators and to Aichinger herself. Each word feels both surprising and inevitable: in English as in German. This surety of voice is rare." * Words without Borders *Table of ContentsA Werdly Country: On Ilse Aichinger and Her LanguageMy Green Donkey My Father Made from StrawThe MouseThe ArrivalThe CrossbeamMemories for Samuel GreenbergPort SingFive ProposalsOnly JoshuaThe Jouet SistersMy Language and IBad WordsStainsDoubts about BalconiesThe Connoisseurs of Western ColumnsThe GuestAmbrosDoverPrivasAlbanyThe Forgetfulness of St IvesRahel’s ClothesCemetery in B. Wisconsin and Apple Rice Hemlin SurrenderSalvage Galy Sad L. to Muzot Sur le bonheur Consensus Insurrection Queens Snow Translators’ Acknowledgements

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Book SynopsisA novel that offers a timely and important viewpoint on the immigration experience about the need for resistance to blind assimilation in a host country. In 1968, in search of a better world, a young person flees her country and ends up in Switzerland, the land of hard cheese. There she’s told not to talk nonsense, or not to “talk cheese,” as they say in the local dialect. Home is where you can grumble, but here you have to be grateful. Her new environs seem unwieldy, aloof, and she rebels against this host country that insists on her following its rules, that won’t let her be herself. But as an interpreter, she meets many others who have ended up here—petty criminals, depressives, hustlers, refugees, victims of exploitation, and others who have gone out of their way to assimilate, people who share a hope that they can make something new of their lives. Gradually she learns to experience the richness of exile and foreignness, to build bridges between cultures. A brilliantly written novel about the search for identity between assimilation and resistance, Irena Brežná’s The Thankless Foreigner is a significant addition to the important literature of immigrant experience.

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Book SynopsisWhile on a duck-hunting holiday sailing in the Frisian Isles, Carruthers and his friend Davies become suspicious of German naval activity off the North Sea Coast. The pair decide to investigate, and are soon embroiled in a world of suspense and intrigue, and the pair set about foiling nothing less than a plot to invade England.Initially published in 1903, The Riddle of the Sands proved a prescient vision of the Anglo-German conflict that was to culminate in the First World War. This thrilling adventure is now regarded as the first - and one of the best - spy novels ever written, inspiring later masters of the genre from John Buchan to John le Carre.Trade Review"'The best story of adventure published in the last quarter of a century' John Buchan 'A thriller anticipating Frederick Forsyth and Len Deighton... never loses pace' Independent on Sunday 'The first and best of spy stories' The Times"

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Book SynopsisWe Seldom Talk About the Past is John MacKenna’s first selected collection of short stories, from a career spanning over three decades. The stories selected come from four collections of short fiction, and represent a culmination of MacKenna’s work in a form of writing he has made uniquely his own. Often compared to John McGahern, and Raymond Carver, and deeply influenced by masters of the form like Chekov, MacKenna’s stories focus on the quotidian truths of our lives, of the momentousness of small moments, of sexual desire and its intimate entanglement with the domestic, of deeply felt absences and social mores, and always at the heart of his work, the sense of place, often the rural, and the acute receptiveness of our lives to the places we inhabit.Trade ReviewMacKenna has a way with the passive gut-punch. -- Eoghan O'Sullivan * Irish Examiner *Every single story in this anthology is a love song to the Irish landscape. MacKenna's outstanding prose is as close to the great McGahern as you'll get. -- Anne Cunningham * Meath Chronicle *"Placed together, these narratives tell a deeper story of what it means to be human...this is the art of the short story, and MacKenna is a master of his craft." -- Becky Long * The Irish Times *

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Book SynopsisIn the nineteenth century Charles Dickens wrote his novels as serials; in the late twentieth century Merrilee Moss conjures up a new kind of serial fiction: of ghosts, of crime, of satire and of lesbian desire. When the ghostly Fedora interrupts Julie Barnard’s morning coffee in Brunswick Street, Julie’s life is set to change. An out-of-work PI, Julie is seduced by Fedora’s French accent and flamboyant hats, but soon discovers that wearing beautiful hats is a dangerous activity.Trade Review"A roll-on-the-floor-and-laugh-out-loud piss-take of the whisky- and tobacco-pumped Peter Corris detective fiction. Sydney has Phil Scott... Melbourne now has Moss." --no name

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Book SynopsisA vivid desert odyssey; the falling woman travels through a haunting landscape of memory, myth and mental maps. Told in three voices – Stella, Estella and Estelle – this is an inspiring story drawn from childhood memories, imagined worlds and the pressing realities of daily life. The Falling Woman charts one woman’s journey into the heartland. It is a journey taken across the desert, into the heart of memory, and into the mythic heart, that place to which we return in times of crisis.Trade Review"A remarkable lyrical first novel" -- Robin Morgan, Ms Magazine."This imaginative, verbally ambitious account of the relationship between two women must command attention." -- Dennis Davison, Best of the Year, The Australian."There can be no question about the imaginative reach and power of this novel." -- John Hanrahan, The Age."It's the extraordinary breadth and depth of ideas that Hawthorne asks her readers to engage with her in The Falling Woman that, in many ways, makes this quite a remarkable novel. We begin to build a picture of a great alternative thinker." -- Diane Brown, JAS Review. "Although she is working with complicated philosophical themes, her use of language is poetic and crystal clear." -- Beryl Fletcher."This is beautiful book, written with powerful insight and captivating originality." -- Julia Hancock, LOTL.Table of ContentsMeaning; Urda; Origins; Futhorc; Magical inscriptions; Memorial stones; Fascism; Titles; Cosmology; Nature; Qabala; Vision; Werdandi; Rune stance; Breathing/ Vowel song; Problems; Tune in; Health?; Divination; Alignments; Sigil sorcery; Seiethr and Seething; Energy; lda; Rune companion; Sources.

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Book SynopsisThis is the entire, unabridged play brought to life as a vivid and engaging full-color graphic novel.With its mix of real people who stumble into a fairy kingdom (with its own problems!) it is little wonder that this play is one of the best loved and most performed of all Shakespeare's masterpieces - and a firm favorite for outdoor theater on a warm summer's evening.Designed to encourage readers to enjoy classical literature, titles in the Classical Comics range stay true to the original vision of the authors.To support the use of this title in the classroom, photocopiable teachers resources are available that offer lesson plans and activities from 6th grade and up: ISBN 978-1-907127-75-5Synopsis:Hermia is in love with Lysander but her father forbids them to marry, insisting that she marries Demetrius instead, whom Hermia’s friend Helena loves. Hermia and Lysander escape to the woods, pursued by Demetrius and Helena. However there is trouble in the woods because the king and queen of the fairies, Oberon and Titania, have quarrelled. To spite Titania, Oberon instructs the mischievous Puck to squeeze the juice of a magic flower into her eyes while she sleeps, so that she falls in love with the first thing she sees when she wakes. He also instructs Puck to apply the same magic to Demetrius so that he will fall in love with Helena. However, Puck gets it all wrong...

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Book SynopsisAmerican literature has known few writers capable of the comic élan and full-bodied portraiture that abound in the novels of Dawn Powell. Yet for decades after her death, Powell’s work was out of print, cherished by a small band of admirers. Only recently has there been a rediscovery of the writer Gore Vidal calls “our best comic novelist,” and whom Edmund Wilson considered to be “on a level with Anthony Powell, Evelyn Waugh, and Muriel Spark.” In this, one of two volumes collecting nine novels, The Library of America presents the best of Powell’s quirky, often hilarious, sometimes deeply moving fiction.My Home Is Far Away (1944), the last of Powell’s novels set in Ohio, is a fictionalized memoir of Powell’s difficult childhood. With The Locusts Have No King (1948), the story of a scholar’s unexpected brush with the temptations of celebrity and riches, Powell resumed her lifelong dissection of New York’s pretensions and glamour. The first of three brilliant postwar satires, it was followed by The Wicked Pavilion (1954), a novel that lays bare its characters’ illusions about love and success against the backdrop of the Café Julien, a relic of a bygone era in the history of Greenwich Village. The volume concludes with Powell’s final novel, The Golden Spur (1962), in which she drew on her time spent among painters at the famed Cedar Tavern for an affectionate if pointed satire on Manhattan’s art world.Dawn Powell’s New York novels are exactly what she wanted them to be: “crystal in quality, sharp as the skyline, and relentlessly true.”LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nation’s literary heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America’s best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.

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Book SynopsisThis Library of America volume brings together one of Henry James’s most unusual experiments and one of his most beloved masterpiecesWriting to his friend William Dean Howells, Henry James characterized his experimental novel, The Sacred Fount, as the only one of his novels to be told in the first person, as “a fine flight into the high fantastic.” While traveling to the country house of Newmarch for a weekend party, the nameless narrator becomes obsessed with the idea that a person may become younger or cleverer by tapping the “sacred fount” of another person. Convinced that Grace Brissenden has become younger by drawing upon her husband, Guy, the narrator seeks to discover the source of the newfound wit of Gilbert Long, previously “a fine piece of human furniture.” His perplexing and ambiguous quest, and the varying reactions it provokes from the other guests, calls into question the imaginative inquiry central to James’s art of the novel.James described the essential idea of The Wings of the Dove as “a young person conscious of a great capacity for life, but early stricken and doomed, condemned to die under short respite, while also enamoured of the world.” The heroine, a wealthy young American heiress, Milly Theale (inspired by James’s beloved cousin Minny Temple), is slowly drawn into a trap set for her by the English adventuress Kate Croy and her lover, the journalist Morton Densher. The unexpected outcome of their mercenary scheme provides the resolution to a tragic story of love and betrayal, innocence and experience that has long been acknowledged as one of James’s supreme achievements as a novelist. This volume prints the New York Edition text of The Wings of the Dove, and includes the illuminating preface James wrote for that edition.LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nation’s literary heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America’s best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.

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Book SynopsisThe Library of America edition of the complete novels of William Faulkner culminates with this volume presenting his first four full-length works of fiction, each newly edited, and, in many cases, restored with passages that were altered or (in the case of Mosquitoes) expurgated by the original publishers. This is Faulkner as he was meant to be read.In these four novels we can track Faulkner’s extraordinary evolution as, over the course of a few years, he discovers and masters the mode and matter of his greatest works. Soldiers’ Pay (1926) expresses the disillusionment provoked by World War I through its account of the postwar experiences of homecoming soldiers, including a severely wounded R.A.F. pilot, in a style of restless experimentation. In Mosquitoes (1927), a raucous satire of artistic poseurs, many of them modeled after acquaintances of Faulkner in New Orleans, he continues to try out a range of stylistic approaches as he chronicles an ill-fated cruise on Lake Pontchartrain.With the sprawling Flags in the Dust (published in truncated form in 1929 as Sartoris), Faulkner began his exploration of the mythical region of Mississippi that was to provide the setting for most of his subsequent fiction. Drawing on family history from the Civil War and after, and establishing many characters who recur in his later books, Flags in the Dust marks the crucial turning point in Faulkner’s evolution as a novelist.The volume concludes with Faulkner’s masterpiece, The Sound and the Fury (1929). This multilayered telling of the decline of the Compson clan over three generations, with its complex mix of narrative voices and its poignant sense of isolation and suffering within a family, is one of the most stunningly original American novels.LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nation’s literary heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America’s best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.

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