Fiction: literary and general non-genre
Hachette Books Slaughtermatic
Book SynopsisSet in the blood-drenched chaos of Beerlight, "a blown circuit, where to kill a man was less a murder than a mannerism," Dante Cubit and his pill-popping sidekick, the Entropy Kid, waltz into First National Bank with some serious attitude and a couple of snub guns. Murderous, trigger-happy cops, led by the doughnut-chomping redneck police chief, arrive in force, firing indiscriminately into the crowd gathered outside. Surrender or capture is out of the question. Dante's beloved, the murderous assassin Rosa Control , packing a not-so-small arsenal , prowls the streets, trying to engineer her man's escape. Will Dante slip past the forces of corruption and disorder to join his Rosa? What happens next is a tangled mess of reality and virtual reality.
£19.48
Marlboro Press,The,U.S. Holy Embrace
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£21.21
Soho Press Inc Silver Stallion: A Novel of Korea
£14.24
Soho Press Inc The Summons
£15.96
Soho Press Inc Upon a Dark Night
£16.96
Soho Press Inc When Red Is Black
Book SynopsisWhen the murder of a woman is reported to the Shanghai police while Inspector Chen is on vacation, Sergeant Yu is forced to take charge of the investigation. The victim, Yin Lige, a novelist known for her banned book, has been found dead in her tiny, humble room off the stairwell of a converted multi-family house. It seems that only a neighbor could have committed the crime, for the building is kept locked at night. But there is no apparent motive. Sergeant Yu tries to unravel the reclusive woman’s past and begins to realize it may have larger political implications. The Cultural Revolution might be more than 30 years in the past, but its effects can still be felt at every level of Chinese society.
£15.26
Soho Press Inc The Secret Hangman
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£14.41
Soho Press Inc The Detective Wore Silk Drawers
Book Synopsis“A rich and unusual mystery, with suspense enough for the most confirmed addict.” —Los Angeles TimesPugilism, a brutal form of bare-knuckle boxing, is forbidden by law in late Victorian England, but Sergeant Cribb discovers evidence that it continues in secret, finding a corpse whose hands were “pickled” for fighting. A young constable called Henry Jago is sent to infiltrate the gang, which he has to submit to a rigorous programme of purging, pickling and training. But Jago is endangered when more murders ensue and Cribb must intervene at a perfectly crucial time to prevent young Jago from being battered to death.
£14.41
Soho Press Inc Silesian Station
Book SynopsisSummer, 1939. British journalist John Russell has just been granted American citizenship in exchange for agreeing to work for American intelligence when his girlfriend Effi is arrested by the Gestapo. Russell hoped his new nationality would let him safely stay in Berlin with Effi and his son, but now he’s being blackmailed. To free Effi, he must agree to work for the Nazis. They know he has Soviet connections and want him to pass them false intelligence. Russell consents, but secretly offers his services to the Soviets instead—not for anything too dangerous, though, and only if they’ll sneak him and Effi out of Germany if necessary. It’s a good plan, but soon things become complicated. A Jewish girl has vanished, and Russell feels compelled to search for her. A woman from his past, a communist, reappears, insisting he help her reconnect with the Soviets, who turn out to demand more than Russell hoped. Meanwhile, Europe lurches toward war, and he must follow the latest stories—to places where American espionage assignments await him.
£15.26
Soho Press Inc Swing, Swing Together
Book Synopsis“Here’s charm and delight. A puzzle postlude to Three Men in a Boat.” —The TimesLondon, 1889: After Jerome K Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat became a Victorian bestseller, rowing on the Thames was the great craze of 1889. When an elementary school teacher in training takes a midnight swim in the Thames and witnesses a body being dumped, Sergeant Cribb and Constable Thackerey are called to investigate. They uncover strange parallels with the enormously popular Victorian novel, but nobody will take them seriously. Following their instincts, they stick doggedly to the trail, which leads upstream to Oxford.
£14.41
Soho Press Inc The Steam Pig
Book SynopsisIn the debut mystery featuring Lieutenant Kramer and Detective Sergeant Mickey Zondi set in South Africa, a beautiful blonde has been killed by a bicycle spoke to the heart, Bantu gangster style. Why?
£15.26
Soho Press Inc Stettin Station
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£15.26
Soho Press Inc Strange Images of Death
Book SynopsisProvence, 1926. Scotland Yard detective Joe Sandilands is on leave, driving his way south to the Riviera while dropping off his niece at an ancient chateau. A troubling crime committed just before their arrival leaves a clear message that more violence is to come. To allay panic, Joe agrees to stay on and root out the guilty person. But, despite Joe’s vigilance, a child goes missing and an artist’s beautiful young model is murdered in circumstances eerily recreating a six hundred-year-old crime of passion. Helped and hindered by a rising star of the French Police Judiciaire, Joe must delve into a horror story from the castle’s past before he can tear the mask from the diseased soul responsible for these contemporary crimes.
£14.41
Barricade Books Inc The Ghost
Book SynopsisA group of avengers set out on a mission to find and assassinate escaped Nazi war criminals.
£20.39
Trafalgar Square The Message from the Horse
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£14.39
Roberts Rinehart Publishers Chin Music: A Novel of the Jazz Age
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£17.09
Boydell & Brewer Ltd Their Pavel
Book SynopsisTranslation of nineteenth-century novel of life in a still-feudal Moravian village. Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (1830-1916) is Austria's most important nineteenth-century woman writer, but her works have remained largely unknown to English speakers, even her most important, the compelling Their Pavel, firstpublished serially in 1887. Based on a true incident, Their Pavel investigates the troubled social relations of a Moravian village that is endowed with the right of local governance but steeped in the habits of its feudalrelationship to the local barony. The novel explores the parallel fates of the children of a hanged murderer and thief. Milada, the appealing and alert daughter, is adopted on a whim by the aging baroness, while Pavel, the awkwardand taciturn son, is thrown upon the uncertain mercy of the village, but both suffer the stigma of their father's crime. In her sometimes grimly humorous picture of village life, the author spares neither the Catholic Church northe landed aristocracy nor the villagers themselves. Lynne Tatlock is Hortense and Tobias Lewin Distinguished Professor in the Humanities in the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures at Washington Universityin St. Louis.Trade ReviewEbner-Eschenbach's story of the slow and indefatigable rise of the orphaned son of an executed murderer, who is reared by his village only out of a sense of its legal obligation, is consistent with prevailing Victorian and Hapsburg era literary tastes. This highly readable rendition preserves both the spirit and the tenor of the original. Not a book just for students and scholars of literature, readers of all backgrounds and tastes should enjoy it. * CHOICE *Still captivates the reader... * SEMINAR *Tatlock succeeded admirably in paralleling the native idiom to reflect the local setting by flavoring her English text in changing moods. * GERMANIC NOTES & REVIEWS *Table of ContentsIntroduction Translator's Note Their Pavel Notes
£23.74
Boydell & Brewer Ltd The Stechlin
Book SynopsisFirst English translation of the final work of Theodor Fontane, one of Germany's most significant novelists. Theodor Fontane (1819-98), widely regarded as Germany's most significant novelist between Goethe and Thomas Mann, pioneered the German novel of manners and upper-class society, following a trend in European fiction of the period.The Stechlin is Fontane's last book and his political testament. Like Effi Briest, his great work on the place of women in Bismarck's empire, it is set at the apex of the Wilhelmine era, both in Berlin and on the estate of a Prussian Junker on the shores of Lake Stechlin. It is a significant historical and cultural document, probably the finest chronicle of the lifestyle of the German upper classes in the late nineteenth century; Fontane portrays the best in the life and ways of the passing Prussian aristocracy, while describing his hopes for the future of Germany and its nobility, which were never to be fully realized. Although this novel has been translated into many languages, it has never before been available in English; this edition thus fills an important gap in the significant works of European literature accessible to English readers.Trade ReviewZwiebel has produced a masterpiece in this translation of Fontane's last major work. * GERMANIC NOTES AND REVIEWS *Table of ContentsIntroduction Castle Stechlin Wutz Convent To the Egg Cottage Election in Rheinsberg-Wutz On Mission in England Engagement: Christmas Excursion to Stechlin Wedding Sunset But Stay a While - Deth - Burial - New Days Notes
£31.34
Milkweed Editions Visigoth: Stories
Book SynopsisVisigoth is a portrait of the American male—gritty, violent, and fascinating. The protagonists in this collection of stories come from all walks of life—hockey players, middle managers, political hopefuls, and wayward husbands—but all share a tendency to turn towards violence when life begins spinning out of control. In "The Flyweight," an all-star high-school wrestler struggles with his own success and the expectations of others when he begins hearing voices after a schizophrenic breakdown. "Visigoth," the title story, depicts a college hockey player unable to understand that his relationship with an English professor is over. The novella "The Free Fall" focuses on a cycle of escalating violence in small farming and mining towns and the effect that it has on the main character and his family. Sharp, inquisitive, and witty, Visigoth challenges the reader to question the popular glory of violence in all its manifestations.
£11.39
Milkweed Editions The Farther Shore
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£15.19
Milkweed Editions Aquaboogie
Book Synopsis“Aquaboogie is a love story in fragments . . . A book by a writer whose love for her characters infuses her work with the dignity and urgency they so clearly deserve.” —The New York Times Book Review Full of defiance and tenderness, Aquaboogie chronicles the triumphs and tragedies of the residents of Rio Seco. In “Aquaboogie,” art student Nacho finances his class out East by working as a janitor, subject to torment by his white coworkers. In “Back,” elderly Pashion sleeps wrapped around the body of her dying husband L. C., all the while recalling their 49 years of marriage and thinking about the sleeping pills she has secreted away for when life becomes unbearable. In “The Box,” Shawan carries her radio everywhere; since her best friend was gunned down, music is the only thing that can get her through the day. In these and other stories in this powerful collection, the author gives voice to those on the margins while demonstrating her great affection for her characters.
£9.99
Milkweed Editions The Song of Kahunsha
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£15.19
Milkweed Editions The Pakistani Bride
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£9.99
Milkweed Editions Orion You Came and You Took All My Marbles
Book SynopsisImmediately captivating, Orion You Came and You Took All My Marbles introduces readers to Finley, an investigator of indiscernible origins and prowess who is assigned to a mysterious Professor Uppal and his puppets. The nature of the investigation isn't clear, but Finley nonetheless forges ahead, with occasional assistance from her colleagues Murphy, The Lamb, and Binelli, as well as the professor's beautiful daughter and her sinister boyfriend. The investigation circles in on itself until Finley realizes that she may be close to discovering the truth about her forgotten life. Both whimsical and deeply serious, Orion You Came and You Took All My Marbles casts a shadow that touches on literary novels, noir, and philosophical pursuits, bringing them all into the singularity of existence itself.Trade Review"Henehan weaves a delicious plot of self-discovery as if in a dreamlike state. Each new development reveals a change in Finley's own existence and resets the very world of the novel itself." --BUST "There is a noirish tinge to the plot, which involves a secretive investigation; the heroine, Finley, is certainly hardboiled, the characters she encounters mysterious in their motivations--but the tone is closer to Lewis Carroll than Raymond Chandler. (Alice in Wonderland-like touches include a Quadrille, a rum-raisin cake, and satirical absurdities including send ups of communes and performance art.) The meandering narrative is subordinate to sprightly wordplay and stylistic elegance, but contextual meaning isn't sacrificed... Funny, fanciful, and kinetic, this work earns its place in any collection of experimental fiction." --Foreword "In playfully measured prose, Henehan's poignant farce evokes Beckett and her world is as funny and inventive as that of George Saunders, but her bold voice and tenderness make for something entirely original, entertaining, and well worth the read." --Booklist "An impressionistic tale propelled by Henehan's gorgeously arch prose and a constant stream of droll humor. There's no doubt that Henehan is a talent."--Publishers Weekly "A very intriguing novel filled with insistent rhythms and syntactical playfulness. Henehan's precision and obvious delight with language make the voice of this novel wonderful company. One is reminded of certain European writers like Beckett or Bernhard, but Henehan has also made something--funny, ominous--of her own."--Sam Lipsyte "Orion You Came and You Took All My Marbles is not just smashingly titled, it is also beautifully, madly, electrically alive. Beware of its puppets. Watch out for Murphy. Keep track of The Lamb. Consider Uppal. Question Finley. Here is worthy work for the fingers, the heart, the eyes, the mind."--Laird Hunt, author of Ray of the Star and The Impossibly "Kira Henehan has reached into the wheezing carcass of the traditional detective story and relieved it of all its bones and logic. The result is a novel unlike anything I've read before: hilarious, severe, baffling, and sometimes so far over my head that I can only see a distant glow."--Ben Marcus, author of Notable American Women
£11.39
Milkweed Editions Extra Indians
Book SynopsisEvery winter, Tommy Jack McMorsey watches the meteor showers in northern Minnesota. On the long haul from Texas to Minnesota, Tommy encounters a deluded Japanese tourist determined to find the buried ransom money from the movie Fargo. When the Japanese tourist dies of exposure in Tommy Jack's care, a media storm erupts and sets off a series of journeys into Tommy Jack's past as he remembers the horrors of Vietnam, a love affair, and the suicide of his closest friend, Fred Howkowski. Exploring with great insight and wit the ways images, stereotypes, and depictions intersect with, Extra Indians offers a powerful glimpse into contemporary Native American life.Trade Review"Exemplary. Gansworth delivers a messy and satisfying resolution. Longtime readers of Gansworth will recognize some characters from his previous work (Mending Skins; etc.), but the discoveries in this novel will delight new readers even more." --Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW "Gansworth will surely garner comparisons to Sherman Alexie for his wry wit and compassionate voice, but his ability to dissect multiple hearts in a single pierce, his precise reconstruction of each lost soul into something new and pure, sets him apart. This is familial redemption at its finest, which is to say agonizingly complex and wholly engaging." --Booklist "Gansworth has given us a beautiful story of the intersection of truth and fiction, family and forgiveness, and the inability to forgive. A powerful story; highly recommended for readers of popular fiction." --Library Journal "In exploring who his characters believe they are versus who they may really be, Eric Gansworth says as much about the constitution of family and America as he does about the construction of identity and the world. Spanning the war in Vietnam, life on the rez, and the Coen Brothers' Fargo, Extra Indians is both rollicking and tenderhearted. --Stewart O'Nan, author of Last Night at the Lobster and Songs for the Missing "Gansworth's look at youthful folly and the damage that violence begets is fully drawn and beautifully written, almost ballad-like with its rueful tone." --Minneapolis Star Tribune "What seemingly begins as a road trip novel detours into a mysterious death and then comes around into a big-hearted novel about reservation life, the resonance of war even thirty years later, and the inescapability of one's past." --Time Out Chicago "A literary novel carrying themes that possess more true-to-life tangible strength than verifiable facts. By layering truth and fiction, Gansworth complicates the two, dislocating us along with his characters." --Philadelphia City Paper "With an exacting eye for images and ear for language, novelist Eric Gansworth has constructed a rich tapestry of interwoven narratives that speak to the contemporary Native American experience, both on and off the reservation." --Buffalo News
£11.99
Milkweed Editions Vestments
Book SynopsisLet me begin today, illumined by Thy light, to destroy this part of the natural man which lives in me in its entirety, the obstacle that constantly keeps me from Thy Love. Taught this prayer as a boy by his grandfather, James Dressler recites it each time he's tempted by earthly desires. Originally drawn to the priesthood by the mystery, purity, and sensual fabric of the Church, as well as by its promise of a safe harbor from his tempestuous home, James finds himself -- just a few years after his ordination -- attracted again to his first love, Betty Garcia. Torn between these opposing desires, and haunted by his familial heritage, James finds himself at a crossroads. Exploring issues in the Catholic Church and in life, and infused throughout by a rich sense of the history and vibrant texture of St. Paul, this is an utterly honest and subtly lyrical novel.Trade ReviewPUBLISHERS WEEKLY BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR MINNESOTA BOOK AWARD WINNER "Reimringer knows well the landscape of the Catholic Church--seminary mentoring, rectory loneliness, the bonding of men of the cloth--and he writes about these things with a combination of affection and ruthless honesty. He also knows the fragility of the human heart, broken as is the body of Christ at Eucharist, with an embedded promise of healing." --America: The Catholic Weekly "Vestments is a pitch-perfect account of priestly life." --Commonweal "Luminous... [a] beautiful debut." --Pioneer Press "A stunning debut." --ForeWord Reviews "In this potent debut about a wayward yet devout young priest who struggles to reconcile his faith with longings of the flesh, Reimringer has crafted a suspenseful, illuminating, and highly readable saga... Reimringer excels, most notably, at revealing how the sensual delectations of Catholic ritual and the forbidden delights of the flesh are part of the same continuum, as sin and repentance feed off each other." --Publishers Weekly (starred review) "Through his thoughtful themes and lyrical prose, Reimringer effortlessly restores a measure of dignity to the priesthood even as he pays tender homage to the working-class roots of St. Paul." --Booklist "A plainspoken but finely turned debut novel... [James Dressler] is full-blooded in a way fictional proests so often aren't, and he stars in an admirably complex study of family ties." --Minneapolis Star Tribune "Ribald and wry, concerned at heart with faith and forgiveness, Vestments is a rich, involving debut." --Stewart O'Nan, bestselling author of Emily, Alone "This book knows the soul of the great old city: the yellowing taverns and fraying neighborhoods, the sense of grace in decline, the doubtful saints wrangling their disbelief. John Reimringer writes with the confidence and observation of one who was there at the time and is there still, and his novel has the knuckles and shouting and beer breath of glory." --Leif Enger, author of Peace Like a River "In this memorable, skillful novel, Reimringer writes compassionately about the tie between violence and yearning, the calls of the body and the calls of the spirit. Many writers can write well about one or the other. The gift of this writer is his rich understanding and love of both. Vestments is a wise, wide, and eloquent book." --Erin McGraw, author of Lies of the Saints "Deeply rooted in history, burning with family furies, and told by a narrator-priest you find yourself rooting for (and wondering about), this is a captivating novel, scene by scene." --Patricia Hampl, author of The Florist's Daughter "A compelling tale that provides a little-seen, interior, first-person point of view of the priesthood." --Library Journal
£14.40
Milkweed Editions American Boy: A Novel
Book SynopsisWe were exposed to these phenomena in order that we might learn something, but of course the lessons we learn are not always what was intended. So begins Matthew Garth's stor of the fall of 1962, when the shooting of a young woman on Thanksgiving Day sets off a chain of unsettling evens in Willow Falls, Minnesota. Matthew first sees Louisa Lindahl in Dr. Dunbar's home office, and at the time her bullet wound makes nearly as strong an impression as her unclothed body. Fueled over the following weeks by his feverish desire for this mysterious woman and a deep longing for the comfort and affluence that appears to surround the Dunbars, Matthew finds himself drawn into a vortex of greet, manipulation, and ultimately betrayal.Trade ReviewEsquire Top 9 Books of the Year Midwest Booksellers Choice Award Finalist Booklist Editor's Choice 2011 Best Book Publishers Weekly 20 Top Indie Sleeper Hits WBEZ Chicago Top 10 Books of 2011 "...powerful and exquisitely crafted...Watson's portraits of small town life and the people who live it--mostly during the 1940s and 1950s--are compassionate and true." --Steve Mills, Chicago Tribune's Printers Row "There are a handful of writers I push on everyone I meet, and Larry Watson is one of them. For the past twenty years has quietly penned some of the wisest, most powerful novels in my library, and I am thrilled to make room on the shelf for his latest, a gripping, poignant coming-of-age story that opens with a gunshot that will ultimately bury its bullet in your heart. American Boy is an American classic." --Benjamin Percy, author of The Wilding and Refresh, Refresh "Larry Watson's latest book, American Boy, may be his best yet. With the patient skill of a seasoned writer, Watson tells an engaging coming-of-age story of a young man in Willow Falls, Minnesota during the 1960s. Youthful passions, heartbreaks, loyalties and moral uncertainties are all rendered in vivid color." --David Rhodes, author of Driftless "[Watson will] harvest a bumper crop of readers this autumn." -- Milwaukee Journal Sentinel "[Watson] spins charm and melancholy around the same fingers, the result a soft but urgent rendering of a young man coming of age in rural America that is recognizable to even those of us who were never there." --Denver Post "Watson is sure-footed on familiar ground in American Boy... [he's] made something of a specialty of that space where teenagers struggle between hormonal urges and moral decisions as they grope toward adulthood. His evocation of that difficult passage feels as sure as his evocation of small-town life in the upper Midwest more than one generation ago... As convincing as it is lonely and bleak." --Billings Gazette "Elemental mystery...American Boy seems oddly 1930's in its noir-like soul. Early 60's optimism, Vietnam or pot doesn't touch this town. But perhaps that's the point--this place is that insular...This is a heroic coming of age story. I was riveted by its layered mystery." --Susan Weinstein, NotAnotherBookReview.blogspot.com "Watson has penned some of the best contemporary fiction about small-town America, and his new novel does not disappoint... With his graceful writing style, well-drawn characters, and subtly moving plot, Watson masterfully portrays the dark side of small-town America. Highly readable and enthusiastically recommended." --Library Journal (starred review) "Eighteen years ago, Milkweed published Watson's breakthrough novel, Montana 1948; now the author returns to Milkweed with another powerful coming-of-age story about a teenage boy [Matthew Garth] being shocked into maturity by a moment of sudden and unexpected violence... Like Holden Caulfield trying to catch innocent children before they fall off the cliff adjoining that field of rye, Matthew struggles to save the Dunbars and, in so doing, save himself. He fails, of course, but that's the point of much of Watson's always melancholic, always morally ambiguous fiction: coming-of-age is about failure as much as it is about growth." --Booklist (starred review) "Watson's new novel about a young man's coming-of-age in rural Minnesota during the early '60s never veers off course." --Publishers Weekly "Watson's sixth novel resonates with language as clear and images as crisp as the spare, flat prairie of its Minnesota setting... A vivid story of sexual tension, family loyalty and betrayal." --Kirkus "A true, realistic, and intelligent novel of a teen-aged Minnesota boy in the early 1960s, in which a woman with a gunshot wound captures young Matthew Garth's imagination and continues to hold it in a fierce grip. Young Matthew first encounters Louisa Lindahl in the office of the town doctor, at whose home he spends much of his time. Along the way, Matthew endeavors to work his way into Louisa's affections, while pursuing typical teenage pursuits with Johnny Dunbar, the doctor's son. While Matthew ultimately finds out the answers to most of the questions he has about this mysterious young woman, many of these answers aren't the ones he wants. Watson does a wonderful job of peering under the masks of these small town folks and helping us see what their real selves are." --Carl Hoffman, Boswell Book Company "Nobody knows the heartland better than Larry Watson and no one is better at conveying its stark landscape and the stark truths that can arise from living in it. The story of young Matt Garth in rural Minnesota in 1962 is not just one of coming of age but also of human frailty and life altering decisions. Watson perfectly evokes an era while telling a story that is timeless." --Bill Cusumano, Nicola's Books "Pure. Simple. Classic. Little more needs to be said about Larry Watson's utterly breath-taking coming-of-age novel featuring two high school chums, Johnny Dunbar and Matthew Garth. This novel takes a fresh look at that time of life, the teen years, when everything happens so suddenly and with such ferociousness: the fist crashing out of nowhere into your unsuspecting chin; the physical sick feeling as your heart breaks upon learning that 'your' girl isn't; that head-to-toe rush of hot blood as you gaze knowingly at your first love; the utterly helpless feeling as your vehicle spins round and round over the black ice. Yes, youth, a time of intensity, immediacy, raw emotions, and suddenness. We remember it well. Now Larry Watson captures it all in this wonderful novel, American Boy. This book will become--is--a classic. I recommend it without reserve to every reader who appreciates life and fine literature." --Nancy Simpson, Book Vault "[Watson] spins charm and melancholy around the same fingers, the result a soft but urgent rendering of a young man coming of age in rural America that is recognizable to even those of us who were never there." -- Denver Post
£10.99
Milkweed Editions Apology
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£11.39
Milkweed Editions Being Esther
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£10.99
Milkweed Editions Jewelweed: A Novel
Book SynopsisFrom a masterful storyteller, comes a Midwestern epic that illuminates the majestic in the commonplace. When David Rhodes burst onto the American literary scene in the 1970s, he was hailed as "a brilliant visionary" (John Gardner), and compared to Sherwood Anderson and Marilynne Robinson. In Driftless, his "most accomplished work yet" (Joseph Kanon), Rhodes brought Words, WI, to life in a way that resonated with readers across the country. Now with Jewelweed, this beloved author returns to the same out-of-the-way hamlet and introduces a cast of characters who all find themselves charged with overcoming the burdens left by the past, sometimes with the help of peach preserves or pie. After serving time for a dubious conviction, Blake Bookchester is paroled and returns home. The story of Blake's hometown is one of challenge, change, and redemption, of outsiders and of limitations, and simultaneously one of supernatural happenings and of great love. Each of Rhodes's characters--flawed, deeply human, and ultimately universal--approach the future with a combination of hope and trepidation, increasingly mindful of the importance of community to their individual lives. Rich with a sense of empathy and wonder, Jewelweed offers a vision in which the ordinary becomes mythical.Trade Review"[A] rhapsodic, many-faceted novel of profound dilemmas, survival, and gratitude... Rhodes portrays his smart, searching, kind characters with extraordinary dimension as each wrestles with what it means to be good and do good." --Booklist (STARRED REVIEW) "Jewelweed is a novel of forgiveness, a generous ode to the spirit's indefatigable longing for love." --Minneapolis Star Tribune "Brave and inspiring... Rhodes also has important things to say about humble, hardworking Americans at odds with contemporary American culture, which he finds predatory, corporate, and soulless. An impressive and emotionally gratifying novel; highly recommended for fans of literary fiction." --Library Journal "Masterful storytelling... The characters in Driftless and Jewelweed are rendered with such care and precision that this little known region of the Midwest becomes dazzlingly alive. At the same time, Rhodes' decision to publish again marks a welcome return of a master storyteller of real people who live in our small towns." --Chicago Tribune Printers Row Journal "A benevolent sort of rural American magical realism... profound." --Publishers Weekly "I liked Driftless, but his emotionally rich new novel, Jewelweed, a sequel of sorts, is even better. The novel emits frequent solar flares of surprise and wonder." --Cleveland Plain Dealer "A master of nuance, Rhodes picks up on those 'inaudible rhythms' that drive human actions: fear, regret, friendship, yearning, and a desire for forgiveness." --Milwaukee Journal Sentinel "[A] deeply moving meditation on the resonance of each individual life on a small Wisconsin town." --Wisconsin State Journal "Jewelweed is another book that all Iowa should read." --Iowa Press-Citizen "A damn fine novel--one of the best kinds--where ordinary people living ordinary lives are drawn by the deft and lyrical touch of the author in such an achingly rich way, one quietly marvels." --Sheryl Cotleur, Copperfield's Books "Rhodes describes the natural world and his characters' inner lives with equal passion, creating an ensemble as natural to its landscape as the trees. Jewelweed is a remarkable piece of storytelling, soul-felt and deeply moving." --Mark LaFramboise, Politics & Prose Bookstore "David Rhodes takes seemingly mundane events, and makes them magic. The everyday is made spectacular through his telling." --Jack Hannert, Brilliant Books "From philosophical prison inmates to childhood-haunted truckers, Rhodes's melange of characters feels so real, you'd swear you lived among them." --Emily Crowe, The Odyssey Bookshop "With Jewelweed, David Rhodes has once more produced a moving, deeply thoughtful novel, of poor people doing difficult things, often against their best interests. He is the same writer, maybe better, as the author of Driftless." --Paul Ingram, Prairie Lights Books
£14.56
Milkweed Editions What a Woman Must Do
Book SynopsisWhen Celia Canby -- Kate's niece, Bess's mother, and Harriet's cousin -- is killed in a car accident, it's up to Kate and Harriet to raise Bess. Ten years later, on the day of the accident, the local newspaper in Harvester, MN, dredges up the story of the accident for a careless "Way Back When" piece, subjecting the women to another round of grief. Kate, arthritic and stuck far away from the farm she loves, is concerned about Bess. Headstrong and closed off, Bess yearns to escape Harvester before she "goes bad." But when she begins to trace the same path of mistakes her mother made -- a risky relationship with a local married man -- everything seems on the verge of falling apart. In a novel that celebrates the power of what a woman can do, What A Woman Must Do asks timeless questions about love and loss: How does our history define us? How can we let go of it? Should we?Trade ReviewPraise for What a Woman Must Do "[T]he pages can't turn fast enough. Sullivan is a good storyteller and the peaceful, rural backdrop she sketches stands in poignant contrast to her sympathetic characters' struggles with temptation and conflicting loyalties." --Publishers Weekly "Sullivan realizes the epoch in subtle and genuine detail. Teens who like family sagas, romance, and complex characters will treasure this novel. Its craftsmanship will cultivate their reading palates toward literary sophistication." --School Library Journal "Sullivan provides a very perceptive look at actions and interactions and how they can reroute lives. Recommended for all libraries." --Library Journal "Sullivan's writing is most effective at evoking the steady pace of small-town life. This novel has a kind of gentle gravity and sweetness." --LA Times "Sullivan writes with insight about the difficulties her women characters face in this insular town. What a Woman Must Do draws the reader in." --Washington Post
£11.99
Milkweed Editions Into the Sun
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£15.02
Milkweed Editions Dream Wheels
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£14.28
Milkweed Editions White: A Novel
Book SynopsisFrom the celebrated author of the “ferociously intelligent and intensely gripping” (Phil Klay) Into the Sun comes a subversive, daring, and at times satirical novel exploring privilege, humanitarianism, white supremacy, and the absurdity of American exceptionalism. Assigned to write an exposé on Richmond Hew, one of the most elusive and corrupt figures in the conservation world, a journalist finds himself on a plane to the Congo, a country he thinks he understands. But when he meets Sola, a woman searching for a rootless white orphan girl who believes herself possessed by a skin-stealing demon, he slowly uncovers a tapestry of corruption and racial tensions generations in the making. This harrowing search leads him into an underground network of sinners and saints—and straight to the heart of his own complicity. An anthropologist who treats orphans like test subjects. A community of charismatic Congolese preachers. Street children who share accounts of abandonment and sexual abuse. A renowned and revered conservationist who vanishes. And then there is the journalist himself, lost in his own misunderstanding of privilege and the myth of whiteness, and plagued by traumatic memories of his father. At first seemingly unrelated, these disparate elements coalesce one by one into a map of Richmond Hew’s movements.Trade ReviewPraise for White “A compelling literary fantasia . . . Deni Ellis Béchard’s fifth book blends fiction, literary and cultural criticism, parody and memoir . . . it is as unsettling as it is thought-provoking.”—Minneapolis Star Tribune “A tale that feel like James Michener and Gabriel Garcia Márquez joined forces to craft a meditation on race. . . . In White, there is nothing clean cut about the way whiteness manifests in geopolitics . . . Captivating, careening, thrilling, and magical, this is intelligent entertainment.”—Foreword Reviews (starred review) "White's self-aware, self-immolating interrogation of colonialism, whiteness, and fiction makes for a smart and dizzying feat of writing."—Meridian “Bechard’s richly nuanced prose and vividly drawn characters make captivating reading while offering provocative food for thought about humanitarianism, corruption, and racial tensions in Africa.”—Booklist “Remarkable . . . White is a thriller, an adventure story, a literary novel that interrogates what the possession of whiteness means to those seen as white. His novel also crosses the boundary of the what defines a novel.”—Signature Praise for Into the Sun “Into the Sun is a ferociously intelligent and intensely gripping portrait of the expatriate community in Kabul—the idealists, mercenaries, aid workers, and journalists circling around a war offering them promises of purpose, redemption, or cash, while the local Afghans in their orbit negotiate the ever-changing and ever-dangerous politics of the latter stages of the American war in Afghanistan. Brilliant.”—Phil Klay, National Book Award-winning author of Redeployment “Into the Sun is the sort of book I’m always hungry for—the serious novel in which the guns literally go off. Béchard makes me think of Graham Greene and Robert Stone, which is heady company, indeed.”—Richard Ford “Into the Sun is an ambitious novel that succeeds on all levels. It’s a riveting mystery-thriller that also probes deeper into the nature of war and the ways in which it attracts and transforms some people. Into the Sun has the propulsive force of a car bomb in the bloodstream, quickening the reader’s pulse at every turn, right up to the very last page.”—David Abrams, author of Fobbit Praise for Of Bonobos and Men “Of Bonobos and Men is the embodiment of the type of reporting that we dream of reading, but all too rarely encounter—intelligent, engaged, and above all, astonishingly perceptive. Here is a portrait of a nation and the conservationists trying to protect it, rendered with all the necessary complexity to make this book joyously alive.”—Dinaw Mengestu, author of The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears “Here is the matter of conservation given profound explanation—a searching and knowing consideration that enables an important social and political and cultural struggle in Africa to become a needed lesson for us who live elsewhere to ponder, take to heart.”—Robert Coles “Journalist Béchard, a foreign correspondent familiar with war zones, probes beneath headlines describing the Congo as ‘a country of such inhumanity that we find it incomprehensible’ and finds another, more hopeful reality. . . . Béchard’s adventurous travels in the Congo offer spice to this rich, complex account.”—Kirkus “For this absorbing report on the BCI’s innovative methods, renowned journalist Béchard mingled with Congo villagers and BCI fieldworkers, observing how the conservationists forged alliances with villagers to build new schools and create jobs. In a country torn by unremitting military strife and rapacious mining, BCI’s work has also helped slow rain-forest destruction. Béchard’s masterful, adventure-driven reporting delivers an inspiring account of an all-too-rare ecological success story.”—Booklist “A vivid, inspiring book, imbued with Béchard’s keen eye for detail.”—Maisonneuve Praise for Cures for Hunger “You haven’t read a story like this one, even if your father was the kind of magnificent scoundrel you only find in Russian novels. Béchard is the rare writer who knows the secret to telling the true story. Just because the end is clear doesn’t mean the bets are off.”—Marlon James, author of A Brief History of Seven Killings “Béchard writes that prison taught his father ‘the nature of the self, the way it can be shaped and hardened.’ As in a great novel, this darkly comic and lyrical memoir demonstrates the shaping of its author, who suffers the wreckage of his father’s life, yet manages to salvage all the beauty of its desperate freedoms. Béchard’s poetic gifts give voice to the outsiders of society, and make them glow with humanity and love.”—Elizabeth McKenzie, author of The Portable Veblen “Béchard has created a moving story of rootlessness, rebellion, lost love, criminal daring, regret, and restless searching. Driven above all by the need to grasp his father’s secrets, he has written his narrative in skillful, resonant prose graced with a subtle tone of obsession and longing.”—Leonard Gardner, author of Fat City “Cures for Hunger is a poignant adventure story with a mystery. . . . But it is also, perhaps even more so, the story of an artist coming of age. Readers will be reminded of James Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.”—Cleveland Plain Dealer “A poignant but rigorously unsentimental account of hard-won maturity.”—Kirkus “Cures for Hunger is flush with tenderness. . . . Much more than a memoir of youthful misadventure, though it contains plenty of that. It’s also an exploration of the oppression of lineage, of familial duty, wanderlust, and perennial dissatisfaction, and the most American theme of them all: personal reinvention.”—Iowa Review Praise for Vandal Love “A strange and beautiful first novel. . . . A sculpted artifact, built sentence by luminous, surprising sentence.”—Minneapolis Star Tribune “A novel you’ll want to read slowly, savoring prose that’s both lyrical and gritty, able to evoke big emotions with exquisite intimacy.”—O, The Oprah Magazine “This is both a road novel and a voyage through time, with each of the book’s two parts covering the lifetimes of several family members in an examination of the Hervé lineage. Ruminations abound on sex, violence, and the bonds between people. This fiction debut, unfolding in punchy prose, recalls Márquez with a French-Canadian twist.”—Publishers Weekly “In Vandal Love Béchard has reinvented the generational novel with innovative brilliance. The book has all the quirky depth of a great HBO series and a line-to-line literary energy that is very rare. This is an enormously impressive debut by a clearly gifted writer.”—Robert Olen Butler “Vandal Love is a lyrical, generational story of a family haunted by God who is not above, but is nature–who is in the chromosomes that make for big and small, strong and weak, who is inside exquisitely cruel and hard journeys, who is the squeak of snow under boots in Québec, or a mosquitoed sweat on a bare, muscled boxer in Louisiana. Reminiscent of Proulx and Doctorow in both sweep and grace of prose, it is hard to believe that Vandal Love, so elegant and accomplished, is only Béchard’s first novel.”—Dagoberto Gilb “Over a vast yet beautifully coherent canvas, Vandal Love follows the panic and privilege of human longing through an amazing coalition of loneliness and adaptation. These characters—injured but unbowed, broken but enduring—introduce a gifted new writer. Béchard’s surety of voice and confident narrative span declare a first rate novel and an eloquent debut.”—Commonwealth Judging Panel, 2007
£10.99
Milkweed Editions The Worlds We Think We Know: Stories
Book SynopsisFiercely funny and entirely original, this debut collection of stories takes readers from the United States to Israel and back again to examine the mystifying reaches of our own minds and hearts. The characters of The Worlds We Think We Know are animated by forces at once passionate and perplexing. At a city zoo, a mismatched couple unite by releasing rare birds. After being mugged in the streets of New York, a professor must repeat the crime to recover his memory—and his lost love. In Tel Aviv, a sandstorm rages to expose old sorrows and fears as far away as Ohio. And from an unnamed Eastern European country, a woman haunts the husband who left her behind for a new life in America. In Dalia Rosenfeld's prose, the foreign becomes familiar and the mundane magical. The Worlds We Think We Know is a dazzling debut—clear-eyed, empathetic, and heartbreaking.Trade ReviewPraise for The Worlds We Think We Know “The Worlds We Think We Know depicts the worlds of cultural and ethnic Jews, worlds she reveals are sometimes at odds, sometimes overlapping, and always tinged with the darkness of a people long persecuted yet cut with the humor it takes to survive. . . . Through her poignant prose and spare, effective dialogue, Rosenfeld conveys a multi-dimensional portrait of the worlds of Jewishness.”—Los Angeles Review “A wholly unique voice . . . Equal parts funny and sorrowful, strange and grounded, human and sometimes magical.”—Bustle “Funny and poignant . . . The lush melancholy of this collection is bolstered by the characters’ deep intelligence and wit. . . . Jewish history is shredded through with displacement, and many of Rosenfeld’s characters are caught in the position of a having a long cultural history and no sense of home.”—Electric Literature “Rosenfeld's debut book of stories is funny, touching, awkward, and wry. . . . This collection charms with quiet humor.”—Kirkus “In this moving collection of stories, Rosenfeld examines Jewish, Israeli, and American experiences by examining their many intersections and divergences. . . . With humor and sadness, Rosenfeld illuminates how the self is at once informed by and wholly separate from culture.”—Publishers Weekly “A profound debut from a writer of great talent.”—Adam Johnson, author of The Orphan Master's Son “I’ve read Rosenfeld’s stories with huge admiration: the tone, the perfectly balanced control of every sentence in the space made for it by the sentence before, the quiet implicitness of every gesture, the scenes so well observed that they seem like indelible steel engravings, and especially, whole lives subliminally yet substantively limned by a phrase or two. Flying beyond what we are used to calling ‘conventional realism,’ Rosenfeld points to a shimmering spot just beyond the horizon, and leaves us yearning. Is there a name for what she does? To find out, I think one must consult Borges. Or Italo Calvino. Or little fragments of Sebald.”—Cynthia Ozick, author of Foreign Bodies “A gorgeous and wise collection of stories filled with deeply human and unforgettable characters. Rosenfeld is a profoundly gifted and compassionate writer, and this is an extraordinary debut.”—Molly Antopol, author of The UnAmericans “Outstanding . . . Set in locales including present-day Jerusalem, the permafrost region of Russia and the streets of Manhattan, Rosenfeld’s best stories focus not only on loss, but on its aftermath: living in the presence of absence. Reprising this theme underscores a common truth about exits: when one person leaves, another gets left behind. But millennia after the Israelites fled from Egypt, is there anything fresh to say about the subject? Turns out, when it comes to Rosenfeld’s fiction, there is. . . . All the old literary tropes that get bent and burnished by [Rosenfeld] feel at once familiar and strange, fathomable and mysterious.”—Haaretz “A master of her craft . . . [Dalia Rosenfeld] chooses words with the care of a composer choosing notes, yielding magnificent sentences. Some of Rosenfeld’s stories feature what I might call a shining sonata; others a lively allegro.”—Jerusalem Post “Rosenfeld is very funny, Jewish, and wise.”—Gary Shteyngart, author of Super Sad True Love Story “A wondrous collection, rich with melancholy humor and insight. Rosenfeld’s stories will go on glimmering in your mind long after you’ve read them.”—Mona Awad, author of 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl
£15.69
Milkweed Editions The Mannequin Makers
Book Synopsis
£11.99
Milkweed Editions A Song from Faraway: A Novel
Book SynopsisIn this, his fourth work of fiction, Béchard takes readers from nineteenth-century Prince Edward Island to modern-day Iraq, tracing the story of a North American family that is at once singular and emblematic, and exploring the cultural repercussions of war and violence. Reinventing themselves in often unexpected ways, the characters in this tapestry defy simplification. A pair of half-brothers come together and drift apart, one passive and risk-averse, the other driven by a passionate desire to understand their reclusive father. A student of Mesopotamian archaeology encounters a young Iraqi man and soon finds himself in Kurdistan, researching stolen artifacts along with mysteries in his father’s past. An Irish-Acadian soldier carries his fiddle and folk song across the battlefields of the First World War. An orphan-turned-assassin pursues his target across the deserts of Mexico and Texas, using a novel as evidence for his location. Growing together and then apart, these and others chase their dreams and run from their nightmares, hungry for life and longing for purpose. Animated throughout by a striking beauty and ferocity, A Song from Faraway pieces together “stories we tell about ourselves,” illuminating the human condition and our times.Trade Review"Béchard, also a journalist who has reported from all over the world, gifts us with an observant, lyrical, and powerful consideration of the violent expansiveness and dangerously flawed stories North American fathers have bequeathed to their sons. Tough of mind and tender of heart, its beauty is wholly entrancing." —San Francisco Chronicle "A novel in stories, Béchard's fourth work of fiction follows one family from 19th-century Canada to modern Iraq, through war and spiritual yearning." —New York Times Book Review, "New & Noteworthy" "Béchard (White) continues his interest in the relationship between myths and fiction writing in this complex, captivating tale . . . [He] provides rich insight into his characters' search for meaning through art." —Publishers Weekly "Fundamentally, A Song from Faraway invites readers to participate in storytelling, to move through uncertainty toward clarity. When we hover between selves, when we lead double lives, when we ask impossible questions, 'We blend with others. We glimpse what else we might become.'" —World Literature Today "A brilliant, gorgeous novel like nothing I've ever read before. With perfect sentences, Béchard writes about vulnerable lives, churning for recognition and purpose beneath the forces of history. The scope of this novel and the complexity of its characters is astounding. This book will make you rethink the incredible power of the stories we tell about ourselves and our inglorious past." —Jen Percy, author of Demon Camp "Lavish and seductive, gloriously kaleidoscopic in conception, Deni Ellis Béchard's A Song from Faraway is a tremendous literary achievement and a page-turner. I fell under its spell completely." —Elizabeth McKenzie, author of The Portable Veblen “A Song from Faraway brings us around the world, singing a song about the folly of truth. It is unsettling and playful and uncanny and breathtaking. Deni Ellis Béchard does in this work what a novel should do; he makes it new and spellbinds us with it.”—Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer “Brave and complex, A Song from Faraway is prose of the highest order, offering a masterclass of characters that have nowhere to hide under the harsh light of their flawed lives. In this blanched terrain, Béchard proves himself to be a magician of a storyteller, deftly commanding the reader's attention with one hand while the other produces surprise after magnificent surprise.”—Dimitri Nasrallah “Powerful, intimate, and compelling, Béchard’s novel will take your breath away. He shows us how fiction meets and transforms history to become fiction again, how what seems faraway—our fathers’ battles, ancient art, the people we love—is nearby, and how mystery continues to propel both our histories and our private lives.” —Johanna Skibsrud Praise for White “A compelling literary fantasia . . . Béchard’s fifth book blends fiction, literary and cultural criticism, parody and memoir. . . . It is as unsettling as it is thought-provoking.”—Minneapolis Star Tribune “A tale that feel like James Michener and Gabriel Garcia Márquez joined forces to craft a meditation on race. . . . In White, there is nothing clean cut about the way whiteness manifests in geopolitics. . . . Captivating, careening, thrilling, and magical, this is intelligent entertainment.”—Foreword Reviews (starred review) “White’s self-aware, self-immolating interrogation of colonialism, whiteness, and fiction makes for a smart and dizzying feat of writing.”—Meridian “Remarkable . . . White is a thriller, an adventure story, a literary novel that interrogates what the possession of whiteness means to those seen as white. His novel also crosses the boundary of the what defines a novel.”—Signature Praise for Into the Sun “Into the Sun is a ferociously intelligent and intensely gripping portrait of the expatriate community in Kabul—the idealists, mercenaries, aid workers, and journalists circling around a war offering them promises of purpose, redemption, or cash, while the local Afghans in their orbit negotiate the ever-changing and ever-dangerous politics of the latter stages of the American war in Afghanistan. Brilliant.”—Phil Klay, National Book Award–winning author of Redeployment “Into the Sun is the sort of book I’m always hungry for—the serious novel in which the guns literally go off. Béchard makes me think of Graham Greene and Robert Stone, which is heady company, indeed.”—Richard Ford Praise for Cures for Hunger “You haven’t read a story like this one, even if your father was the kind of magnificent scoundrel you only find in Russian novels. Béchard is the rare writer who knows the secret to telling the true story. Just because the end is clear doesn’t mean the bets are off.”—Marlon James, author of A Brief History of Seven Killings “Béchard writes that prison taught his father ‘the nature of the self, the way it can be shaped and hardened.’ As in a great novel, this darkly comic and lyrical memoir demonstrates the shaping of its author, who suffers the wreckage of his father’s life, yet manages to salvage all the beauty of its desperate freedoms. Béchard’s poetic gifts give voice to the outsiders of society, and make them glow with humanity and love.”—Elizabeth McKenzie, author of The Portable Veblen Praise for Vandal Love “A strange and beautiful first novel . . . A sculpted artifact, built sentence by luminous, surprising sentence.”—Minneapolis Star Tribune “A novel you’ll want to read slowly, savoring prose that’s both lyrical and gritty, able to evoke big emotions with exquisite intimacy.”—O, The Oprah Magazine “In Vandal Love Béchard has reinvented the generational novel with innovative brilliance. The book has all the quirky depth of a great HBO series and a line-to-line literary energy that is very rare. This is an enormously impressive debut by a clearly gifted writer.”—Robert Olen Butler, author of A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain
£11.39
Milkweed Editions The Shame
Book Synopsis
£10.99
Milkweed Editions Aviary
Book Synopsis
£17.09
Milkweed Editions Listening to the Wind
Book Synopsis
£15.40
Milkweed Editions The Village on Horseback: Prose and Verse,
Book SynopsisThe Village on Horseback features mesmerizing new work from the author of Samedi the Deafness and The Way Through Doors, one of the New Yorker's Best Books of 2009. This collection of new pieces by experimental writer Jesse Ball is a philosophical recasting of myth and legend. Unearthing parables from the compost heap of oral tradition, folklore, literature, and popular culture, The Village on Horseback can be read as a sort of fabulist's compendium by an author who has been called charming, lyrical, fanciful, and "disturbingly original."
£12.34
University of Tennessee Press The Road
Book Synopsis"In The Road John Ehle's skill as a storyteller brings an early episode of road building in the North Carolina mountains to rich and vivid life. Hardship and humor, suffering and dreams are the balance for survival in a landscape that makes harsh demands on its intruders. Ehle lets us experience this place, people, and past in a fully realized novel."—Wilma Dykeman"The Road is a strong novel by one of our most distinguished authors. Muscular, vivid, and pungent, it is broad in historical scope and profound in its human sympathies. We welcome its return with warm pleasure."—Fred ChappellOriginally published in 1967, The Road is epic historical fiction at its best. At the novel's center is Weatherby Wright, a railroad builder who launches an ambitious plan to link the highlands of western North Carolina with the East. As a native of the region, Wright knows what his railway will mean to the impoverished settlers. But to accomplish his grand undertaking he must conquer Sow Mountain, "a massive monolith of earth, rock, vegetation and water, an elaborate series of ridges which built on one another to the top."Wright's struggle to construct the railroad—which requires tall trestles crossing deep ravines and seven tunnels blasted through shale and granite—proves to be much more than an engineering challenge. There is opposition from a child evangelist, who preaches that the railroad is the work of the devil, and there is a serious lack of funds, which forces Wright to use convict labor. How Wright confronts these challenges and how the mountain people respond to the changes the railroad brings to their lives make for powerfully compelling reading.The Author: A native of Asheville, North Carolina, John Ehle has written seventeen novels and works of nonfiction. His books include The Land Breakers, The Journey of August King, The Winter People, and Trail of Tears: The Rise and Fall of the Cherokee Nation. Among the honors he has received are the Lillian Smith Prize and the Thomas Wolfe Memorial Award.
£24.71
Surrey Books,U.S. The Last Thing You Surrender: A Novel of World
Book SynopsisCould you find the courage to do what’s right in a world on fire? Pulitzer-winning journalist and bestselling novelist (Freeman) Leonard Pitts, Jr.’s new historical page-turner is a great American tale of race and war, following three characters from the Jim Crow South as they face the enormous changes World War II triggers in the United States. An affluent white marine survives Pearl Harbor at the cost of a black messman’s life only to be sent, wracked with guilt, to the Pacific and taken prisoner by the Japanese . . . a young black woman, widowed by the same events at Pearl, finds unexpected opportunity and a dangerous friendship in a segregated Alabama shipyard feeding the war . . . a black man, who as a child saw his parents brutally lynched, is conscripted to fight Nazis for a country he despises and discovers a new kind of patriotism in the all-black 761st Tank Battalion. Set against a backdrop of violent racial conflict on both the front lines and the home front, The Last Thing You Surrender explores the powerful moral struggles of individuals from a divided nation. What does it take to change someone’s mind about race? What does it take for a country and a people to move forward, transformed?Trade ReviewPraise for Leonard Pitts, Jr.'s novel THE LAST THING YOU SURRENDER:“Seamlessly integrates impressive research into a compelling tale of America at war—overseas, at home, and within ourselves, as we struggle to find the better angels of our nature. Pitts poignantly illustrates ongoing racial and class tensions, and offers hope that we can overcome hatred by refusing to sacrifice dignity.” —Booklist, starred review."The Last Thing You Surrender is a story of our nation at war, with itself as well as tyranny across the globe. It’s an American tapestry of hatred, compassion, fear, courage, and cruelties, leavened with the promise of triumph. A powerful story I will not soon forget.” —James R. Benn, author of the Billy Boyle WWII Mystery series “Leonard Pitts, Jr. does it again. He interweaves stories that grip you from beginning to end. Set during WWII, it shows how race relations in America haven't advanced much. The Last Thing You Surrender will have you entranced with the story, and it will stick with you even after you complete the last page.” —Southfield Public Library "I couldn't put it down, and it left me stunned! It’s such a harsh novel, yet at the same time, it’s a hopeful novel that is so relevant today. I'm already telling people about it.” —Pete Mock, McIntyre's Books, Pittsboro, North CarolinaPraise for Leonard Pitts, Jr.'s novel GRANT PARK:"Grant Park is layered, insightful, and passionate. Pitts's subtly explosive language grips readers with the delicate subject matter and earnestly implores them to understand that '[race] has always meant something and it always will.' The scars will remain, but stunningly powerful examinations like Grant Park can be the salve that helps heal open wounds." Shelf-Awareness, starred review"Leonard Pitts has written a taut thriller that weaves together a stark look at America's tortured racial past with a fast-paced tale of terrorist conspiracy and love rekindled." Neil Steinberg, Chicago Sun Times. . . these ideas [are] perennially salient, and doubly so today, given a growing litany of American sorrows, from Ferguson to Charleston and beyond. . . . lays bare the extent to which Americans, black and white, still struggle to articulate the basic elements of our shared past." Vinson Cunningham, New York Times Book Review"The book is a page-turner, but also one that commands deep reflection on history, racism, and personal choices." Blanca Torres, The Seattle Times"A novel as significant as it is engrossing." Booklist, starred review"Pitts masterfully revisits [election night on November 4, 2008] and four decades of the civil rights struggle to create one of the most suspenseful and spectacular fictitious moments you'll experience this fall." Patrik Henry Bass, Essence"Pitts does a skillful job of building tension in the novel's historical sections as well as on Election Day. . . . He also does something not every political thriller writer does: builds believable, complex characters." Colette Bancroft, Tampa Bay Times"[A] high-stakes, hard-charging political thriller. . . . The sharply etched characters, careful attention to detail, and rich newspaper lore propel Pitts's socially relevant novel." Publishers Weekly"And then there are those thrillsgasping, mouth-gaping page-turners that author Leonard Pitts Jr. weaves through another realism: truthful, brutal plot-lines about racial issues of the last five decades, mulling over exactly how far we’ve really come. That makes this will-they-live-or-won't-they nail-biter into something that also made me think, and I absolutely loved it." Terri Schlichenmeyer, The Bookworm Sez"An important book, one that honestly examines the current, tumultuous racial divide in our country and demands we not turn away from its harsh realities." Amy Canfield, Miami Herald"Grant Park is a book that’s both socially relevant and a lot of fun." NewCity"In the aftermath of this summer's racially motivated mass murder in Charleston, South Carolina, by an avowed white supremacist, there's near-eerie prescience in Pitts' historical novel. . .[Grant Park], with urgency and passion, makes readers aware that the mistakes of the past are neglected at the future's peril." Kirkus Reviews"Grant Park is a monumental work, so all-encompassing in scope that reviewers will be hard-pressed to do it justice. Pitts’s passion for a solution holds strong to the end of his novel even as his central character seems to give up. Readers will find Grant Park is real." Bookpleasures.com"Grant Park is a thriller, and readers will find themselves turning pages accordingly, although the interior stories of Bob and Malcolm regarding their younger selves may be the real action." Brian Burnes, The Kansas City StarPraise for Leonard Pitts, Jr.'s previous novel FREEMAN:"A uniquely American epic. . . by a knowledgeable, compassionate and relentlessly truthful writer." Howard Frank Mosher, Washington Post"A pretty powerful love story." Audie Cornish, All Things Considered"Gorgeously written; a searing, wrenching read. Fans of Cold Mountain and Cormac McCarthy will love this story." Jennifer Weiner, author of The Next Best Thing"Leonard Pitts has a passion for history and a gift for storytelling. Both shine in this story of love and redemption." Gwen Ifill, PBS, author of The Breakthrough"Freeman is a myth of what’s humanly possible, a needed story about little-known heroism, and a shadow thrown forward to the struggles of American families in the 21st century." John Timpane, Philadelphia Inquirer"A wonderful, moving, riveting novel." Gabrielle Union, actress"Post-Civil War America is fertile ground for novelists, but few have tilled it with such grace and majesty as Leonard Pitts." Herb Boyd, co-editor of By Any Means NecessaryMalcolm X: Real, not Reinvented"This book is an eye-opening commentary on devotion during this tangled chapter of American history." Wendi Thomas, Memphis Commercial Appeal"Leonard Pitts, Jr. crafts a novel as well as the great storytellers of our time. Freeman captured my attention from the very first sentence and my heart throughout." Sybil Wilkes, The Tom Joyner Morning Show"Freeman reminds us of our humanity." Nancy Olson, owner of Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh, North Carolina
£12.99
Penguin Putnam Inc The Kite Runner
Book SynopsisTraces the unlikely friendship of a wealthy Afghanistani youth and a servant''s son, in a tale that spans the final days of the nation''s monarchy through the atrocities of the present day. 40,000 first printing.
£22.40
Penguin Putnam Inc Tipping the Velvet: A Novel
Book Synopsis
£15.30
Penguin Putnam Inc Fingersmith
Book Synopsis
£16.15
Penguin Putnam Inc The Russian Debutante's Handbook: A Novel
Book Synopsis
£14.40
The University of Alabama Press Paradise Field: A Novel in Stories
Book SynopsisInterconnected stories depicting the last years of a WWII bomber pilot, his relationship with his daughter as both child and adult, and his drift into infirmity and death. When life dwindles to its irrevocable conclusion, recollections are illuminated, even unto the grave. Such is the narrative of Paradise Field: A Novel in Stories , whose title is taken from a remote airfield in the American Southwest, and while the father recalls his flying days, his daughter–who nurses the old man–reflects as well. Pamela Ryder's stories vary in style and perspective, and time lines overlap as death advances and retreats. This unique and shifting narrative explores the complexities of a relationship in which the father–who has been a high-flying outsider–descends into frailty and becomes dependent upon the daughter he has never really known. The opening story, �Interment for Yard and Garden,� begins as a simple handbook for Jewish burial and bereavement, although the narrator cannot help but reveal herself and her motives. From there, the telling begins anew and unfolds chronologically, returning to the adult daughter's childhood: a family vacation in France, the grotesqueries of the dinner table, the shadowy sightings of a father who has flown away. A final journey takes father and daughter back to the Southwest in search of Paradise Field. Their travels through that desolate landscape foreshadow the father's ultimate decline, as portrayed in the concluding stories that tell of the uneasy transformation in the bond between them and in the transcendence of his demise. Taken together, the stories in Paradise Field are an eloquent but unsparing depiction of infirmity and death, as well as solace and provocation for anyone who has been left to stand graveside and confront eternity.Trade ReviewLet's not futz around. I'm old, a Jew, a man who, but for the fates in charge of the trivialities, might have been Ryder's father. Well, for all that, I am Ryder's father or, anyhow, a father of Ryder, and will, accordingly, go agreeably to my grave praising her name as if my doing so might work for my daughter the favor of the gods. Let me tell you - in the matter of my thinking what must be said when an occasion such as this has come to take me by the heart: it was with tears in my eyes that I made my way through the pages recording Ryder's mission to bury her dead in a manner unique among the methods practiced by humankind. Her art is water for the thirsty, sustenance for the deprived. I ask you, which of us is not perishing from the logic of the insufficiency woven into the world's conceivable answer to our unappeasable cries? Ryder, her soul, her sentences, they are one thing, and this totality is given as an exception - the valedictory gesture of a mensch, this Pamela Ryder, enacting her livelong promise via the ceremonies of Paradise Field. Listen to me - my daughter brings comfort, brings balm, brings the exhilarations of loving and kinship to all those who would, by words, be cured."" - Gordon Lish, author of Peru""Ryder writes with wit, brio, and laser-like honesty about her father - a man who, having eluded her for decades, is now at the end of his life. The Kafkaesque nature of caretaking and the obscene depredations of age are interlaced with a kind of cockeyed delight: eating a blintz in hell, regarding the clouds, giving death the (frail) finger. Ryder has both the ear of a poet and the soul of a warrior."" - Dawn Raffel, author of The Secret Life of Objects
£15.15
