Download or read book My Staggerford Journal written by Jon Hassler and published by . This book was released on with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Staggerford Flood written by Jon Hassler and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2003-10-28 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Staggerford Flood, Jon Hassler brings back Agatha McGee and reunites other favorite characters from his award-winning Staggerford novels. When a flood hits Staggerford and neighboring towns, Agatha McGee's house on the highest hill in town becomes a refuge for seven female neighbors, friends, and former students for three days and three nights. This deluge of old and new friends—as well as a new young priest who thinks Agatha has become a bit too zealous about morality—helps to restore Agatha's own very distinctive spark.
Download or read book The Staggerford Murders and Nancy Clancy s Nephew written by Jon Hassler and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2004-11-30 with total page 142 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Filled with his trademark humor and warmth, Jon Hassler’s The Staggerford Murders and The Life and Death of Nancy Clancy’s Nephew offer a welcome return to the town that has captivated readers for years. In The Staggerford Murders, residents of the Ransford Hotel "solve" the nine- year-old murder of esteemed Staggerford citizen Neddy Nichols and the disappearance of his widow, Blanche. Hassler’s wry humor is in full force as this wonderful tale unfolds. In the more poignant and bittersweetThe Life and Death of Nancy Clancy’s Nephew, elderly W.D. Nestor finds his loneliness dispelled by his friendship with a young Staggerford boy, but it is a sudden visit to his one hundred-year-old Aunt Nancy that provides the peace he has always been looking for.
Download or read book The New Woman written by Jon Hassler and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2006-09-26 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since 1977, Jon Hassler’s Staggerford series has entranced readers with its funny and charming depiction of life in small-town America. The New Woman is his latest visit to this Minnesota hamlet. At the age of eighty-eight, Agatha McGee has grudgingly moved out of her house on River Street and into the Sunset Senior Apartments. She’s not happy about giving up her independence, and Sunset Senior’s arts and crafts activities and weekly excursions to the Blue Sky Casino are hardly a consolation. Meanwhile two of her close friends pass away, her nephew Frederick is drifting into depression, and a kidnapped little girl has suddenly appeared on her doorstep. With characteristic poise and dignity, Agatha takes on her problems and finds that the bonds of friendship and family are still the key to happiness at any age. Affectionate and life-affirming, The New Woman is another delightful trip to a town with a soul as real as rural America itself.
Download or read book Staggerford written by Jon Hassler and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2011-01-12 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The classic novel of a small Minnesota town—and of one school teacher who calls it home This utterly charming, deeply poignant debut remains perhaps the signature achievement of beloved novelist Jon Hassler—once hailed by The New York Times as “a writer good enough to restore your faith in fiction.” It’s the story of a week in the life of Miles Pruitt, a thirty-five-year-old bachelor who teaches high school English in Staggerford, Minnesota. And though it is only a week, it’s an extraordinary week, filled with the poetry of living, the sweetness of expectation, and the glory of surprise that can change a life forever. Praise for Staggerford “Witty, intelligent, compassionate . . . an absolutely smashing first novel.”—The Plain Dealer “You’ll remember it for a long time.”—The Minneapolis Tribune “One of the year’s truly freshly conceived and carried out novels, one whose not always so gentle ironies address themselves to a broader range of life than is to be found in Staggerford, Minnesota.”—The Kansas City Star “A thoroughly convincing X-ray vision of small-town life . . . so sincere, so true, so honest with itself, and so very, very funny that a reader often has to wipe the tears out of the corners of his eyes before he can—as he must—read on.”—The Houston Post “Very entertaining . . . [Miles is] one of the most likable protagonists of modern fiction.”—The Pittsburgh Press “Staggerford, Minnesota, is a town out of control. It is as weird and convoluted as any lover of comic fiction could wish.”—Boston Herald American
Download or read book Staggerford written by Jon Hassler and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2011-01-12 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The classic novel of a small Minnesota town—and of one school teacher who calls it home This utterly charming, deeply poignant debut remains perhaps the signature achievement of beloved novelist Jon Hassler—once hailed by The New York Times as “a writer good enough to restore your faith in fiction.” It’s the story of a week in the life of Miles Pruitt, a thirty-five-year-old bachelor who teaches high school English in Staggerford, Minnesota. And though it is only a week, it’s an extraordinary week, filled with the poetry of living, the sweetness of expectation, and the glory of surprise that can change a life forever. Praise for Staggerford “Witty, intelligent, compassionate . . . an absolutely smashing first novel.”—The Plain Dealer “You’ll remember it for a long time.”—The Minneapolis Tribune “One of the year’s truly freshly conceived and carried out novels, one whose not always so gentle ironies address themselves to a broader range of life than is to be found in Staggerford, Minnesota.”—The Kansas City Star “A thoroughly convincing X-ray vision of small-town life . . . so sincere, so true, so honest with itself, and so very, very funny that a reader often has to wipe the tears out of the corners of his eyes before he can—as he must—read on.”—The Houston Post “Very entertaining . . . [Miles is] one of the most likable protagonists of modern fiction.”—The Pittsburgh Press “Staggerford, Minnesota, is a town out of control. It is as weird and convoluted as any lover of comic fiction could wish.”—Boston Herald American
Download or read book Keepsakes Other Stories written by Jon Hassler and published by Minnesota Historical Society. This book was released on 2009-10-15 with total page 124 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Publishers Weekly These seven gentle tales set in Minnesota and North Dakota and all written during the 1970s treat fans of novelist Hassler (A Green Journey; Jemmy) to the earliest fruits of his talent. Some are folksy portraits of small-town characters, while others are drier and more plot driven. Both the title story and "Resident Priest" feature crusty, 74-year-old Father Fogarty, a pastor who's leaving his parish after 23 years. In "Chief Larson," a seven-year-old Indian boy, known (rather improbably) only as "chief" on the reservation, rebels in a small but telling way against his white adoptive family. "Good News in Culver Bend" tracks two city reporters who travel to a small town and discover "the heart of Christmas." "Chase" and "Christopher, Moony, and the Birds" show how frustrated residents of small towns seek solace. The former, so brief it's nearly a prose poem, hints at Hassler's own adolescent discovery of his talent for fiction; the latter follows a lonely 50-year-old college professor as he goes on a consolatory walk with a student's awkward wife and child, watching "birds on family outings, hopping and halting on the grass." The cleverest story, "Yesterday's Garbage," follows a "garbologist" who finds the truth about a murder in a trash bin, and is then led to commit one himself. The publisher plans to issue Hassler's later short fiction in three more volumes, starting in the year 2000. (Sept.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Download or read book The Promise of Failure written by John McNally and published by University of Iowa Press. This book was released on 2018-06-15 with total page 141 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Promise of Failure is part memoir of the writing life, part advice book, and part craft book; sometimes funny, sometimes wrenching, but always honest. McNally uses his own life as a blueprint for the writer’s daily struggles as well as the existential ones, tackling subjects such as when to quit and when to keep going, how to deal with depression, what risking something of yourself means, and ways to reenergize your writing through reinvention. What McNally illuminates is how rejection, in its best light, is another element of craft, a necessary stage to move the writer from one project to the next, and that it’s best to see rejection and failure on a life-long continuum so that you can see the interconnectedness between failure and success, rather than focusing on failure as a measure of self-worth. As brutally candid as McNally can sometimes be, The Promise of Failure is ultimately an inspiring book—never in a Pollyannaish self-help way. McNally approaches the reader as a sympathetic companion with cautionary tales to tell. Written by an author who has as many unpublished books under his belt as published ones, The Promise of Failure is as much for the newcomer as it is for the established writer.
Download or read book Good People from an Author s Life written by Jon Hassler and published by Loyola Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In Good People, celebrated novelist Jon Hassler examines goodness with warmth, humor, and poignancy by exploring the many meaningful relationships that have enriched his life. He describes his parents and grandparents, childhood playmates, fellow teachers and writers - including the renowned fiction writer J.F. Powers - and shows how the goodness in these people has inspired the good people in his fiction. Written in the same engaging style as his novels, Hassler's stories reveal much of his own background, including his strong Catholic faith and the places that have shaped his writing."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Download or read book Encyclopedia of the American Novel written by Abby H. P. Werlock and published by Infobase Learning. This book was released on 2015-04-22 with total page 3854 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Praise for the print edition:" ... no other reference work on American fiction brings together such an array of authors and texts as this.
Download or read book The Library Journal written by and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 780 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Includes, beginning Sept. 15, 1954 (and on the 15th of each month, Sept.-May) a special section: School library journal, ISSN 0000-0035, (called Junior libraries, 1954-May 1961). Also issued separately.
Download or read book Sequels written by Janet G. Husband and published by American Library Association. This book was released on 2009-07-30 with total page 793 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A guide to series fiction lists popular series, identifies novels by character, and offers guidance on the order in which to read unnumbered series.
Download or read book Four Miles to Pinecone written by Jon Hassler and published by Fawcett. This book was released on 2011-07-20 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: He was an eyewitness to a crime that his best friend committed. . . . “It all started the day school ended” That was when my English teacher decided not to flunk me—if I wrote a long story during my summer vacation. My name’s Tom Barry. I’m sixteen, and I really do want to be a junior next year at the high school in St. Paul where I live. But with my full-time job at Mr. Kerr’s grocery store, I didn’t think I’d have enough time to do it. But by the end of the week, the paper seemed small potatoes. You see, Mr. Kerr’s store was broken into—and my best friend Mouse was involved. I saw him, but I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to be a fink. I kept mum because it was right about then that I was invited to stay at my uncle’s resort near Pinecone. It’s a real neat place in the Minnesota woods, and I figured I would cool out there. And then I found that they have crime just like in St. Paul—but this time the stakes were much higher. Suddenly, my life was on the line. . . .
Download or read book South Dakota Review written by and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 784 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book My Home is Far Away written by Dawn Powell and published by Steerforth. This book was released on 2011-11-08 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: My Home is Far Away is the most precisely autobiographical of Powell’s fifteen novels. In this family chronicle set in early twentieth century Ohio, young Marcia Willard’s family struggles to keep up with the rapidly changing times, and Marcia endures disillusionment, cruelty, and betrayal to forge a survivor’s sense of independence. John Updike has compared Powell with Theodore Dreiser, Willa Cather, Sherwood Anderson, “and those other Midwestern writers who felt something epic in the national shift from rural to urban, from provincial sequestration to metropolitan liberation.” By 1941, when Powell set to work on My Home Is Far Away, she was better known for the smart, boozy, bawdy, hilarious send-ups of Manhattan high and low life. She had begun to attain a reputation for high sophistication and nothing could be less “sophisticated” – in the glittering, all-knowing, furiously present-tense, big-city manner Powell had perfected – than My Home Is Far Away. This was the month of cherries and peaches, of green apples beyond the grape arbor, of little dandelion ghosts in the grass, of sour grass and four-leaf clovers, of still dry heat holding the smell of nasturtiums and dying lilacs. This was the best month of all and the best day. It was not birthday, Easter, Christmas, or picnic, but all these things and something else, something wonderful, something utterly unknown. The two little girls in embroidered white Sunday dresses knew no way to express their secret joy but by whirling each other dizzily over the lawn crying, “We’re moving, we’re moving! We’re moving to London Junction!” My Home Is Far Away is one of the very few examples of a book written for adults, with an adult command of the language, that maintains the vantage point of a hungry, serious child throughout. It might be likened to a memoir that has been penned not with the usual tranquility of distance but rather with the sense that everything happening to the characters is happening right now, without any promise of eventual escape, without any assurance that childhood, too, shall pass away. My Home is Far Away had been out of print for sixty years when Steerforth reissued it in 1995. It received immediate widespread acclaim, and was featured on the cover of the New York Times Book Review, where Terry Teachout called it “one of the permanent masterpieces of childhood, comparable with David Copperfield, What Maisie Knew and the early reminiscences of Colette,” and where he proclaimed Powell to be “one of this country’s least recognized great novelists.”
Download or read book The North Dakota Quarterly written by and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Cassette Books written by Library of Congress. National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
