Download or read book The Corner That Held Them written by Sylvia Townsend Warner and published by New York Review of Books. This book was released on 2019-09-10 with total page 425 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A unique novel about life in a 14th-century convent by one of England's most original authors. Sylvia Townsend Warner’s The Corner That Held Them is a historical novel like no other, one that immerses the reader in the dailiness of history, rather than history as the given sequence of events that, in time, it comes to seem. Time ebbs and flows and characters come and go in this novel, set in the era of the Black Death, about a Benedictine convent of no great note. The nuns do their chores, and seek to maintain and improve the fabric of their house and chapel, and struggle with each other and with themselves. The book that emerges is a picture of a world run by women but also a story—stirring, disturbing, witty, utterly entrancing—of a community. What is the life of a community and how does it support, or constrain, a real humanity? How do we live through it and it through us? These are among the deep questions that lie behind this rare triumph of the novelist’s art.
Download or read book Summer Will Show written by Sylvia Townsend Warner and published by New York Review of Books. This book was released on 2011-06-08 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In revolutionary Paris, a disaffected Victorian wife becomes enraptured by her husband’s mistress—a “brilliantly entertaining” historical fiction novel that was “far ahead of its time” (Guardian). “One of the great under-read British novelists of the 20th century . . . my favorite of her novels.” —Sarah Waters, author of Fingersmith Sophia Willoughby, a young Englishwoman from an aristocratic family and a person of strong opinions and even stronger will, has packed her cheating husband off to Paris. He can have his tawdry mistress. She intends to devote herself to the serious business of raising her two children in proper Tory fashion. Then tragedy strikes: the children die, and Sophia, in despair, finds her way to Paris, arriving just in time for the revolution of 1848. Before long she has formed the unlikeliest of close relations with Minna, her husband’s sometime mistress, whose dramatic recitations, based on her hair-raising childhood in czarist Russia, electrify audiences in drawing rooms and on the street alike. Minna, “magnanimous and unscrupulous, fickle, ardent, and interfering,” leads Sophia on a wild adventure through bohemian and revolutionary Paris, in a story that reaches an unforgettable conclusion amidst the bullets, bloodshed, and hope of the barricades. Sylvia Townsend Warner was one of the most original and inventive of twentieth-century English novelists. At once an adventure story, a love story, and a novel of ideas, Summer Will Show is a brilliant reimagining of the possibilities of historical fiction.
Download or read book Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet written by Jamie Ford and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2009-01-27 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Sentimental, heartfelt….the exploration of Henry’s changing relationship with his family and with Keiko will keep most readers turning pages...A timely debut that not only reminds readers of a shameful episode in American history, but cautions us to examine the present and take heed we don’t repeat those injustices."-- Kirkus Reviews “A tender and satisfying novel set in a time and a place lost forever, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet gives us a glimpse of the damage that is caused by war--not the sweeping damage of the battlefield, but the cold, cruel damage to the hearts and humanity of individual people. Especially relevant in today's world, this is a beautifully written book that will make you think. And, more importantly, it will make you feel." -- Garth Stein, New York Times bestselling author of The Art of Racing in the Rain “Jamie Ford's first novel explores the age-old conflicts between father and son, the beauty and sadness of what happened to Japanese Americans in the Seattle area during World War II, and the depths and longing of deep-heart love. An impressive, bitter, and sweet debut.” -- Lisa See, bestselling author of Snow Flower and the Secret Fan In the opening pages of Jamie Ford’s stunning debut novel, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, Henry Lee comes upon a crowd gathered outside the Panama Hotel, once the gateway to Seattle’s Japantown. It has been boarded up for decades, but now the new owner has made an incredible discovery: the belongings of Japanese families, left when they were rounded up and sent to internment camps during World War II. As Henry looks on, the owner opens a Japanese parasol. This simple act takes old Henry Lee back to the 1940s, at the height of the war, when young Henry’s world is a jumble of confusion and excitement, and to his father, who is obsessed with the war in China and having Henry grow up American. While “scholarshipping” at the exclusive Rainier Elementary, where the white kids ignore him, Henry meets Keiko Okabe, a young Japanese American student. Amid the chaos of blackouts, curfews, and FBI raids, Henry and Keiko forge a bond of friendship–and innocent love–that transcends the long-standing prejudices of their Old World ancestors. And after Keiko and her family are swept up in the evacuations to the internment camps, she and Henry are left only with the hope that the war will end, and that their promise to each other will be kept. Forty years later, Henry Lee is certain that the parasol belonged to Keiko. In the hotel’s dark dusty basement he begins looking for signs of the Okabe family’s belongings and for a long-lost object whose value he cannot begin to measure. Now a widower, Henry is still trying to find his voice–words that might explain the actions of his nationalistic father; words that might bridge the gap between him and his modern, Chinese American son; words that might help him confront the choices he made many years ago. Set during one of the most conflicted and volatile times in American history, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet is an extraordinary story of commitment and enduring hope. In Henry and Keiko, Jamie Ford has created an unforgettable duo whose story teaches us of the power of forgiveness and the human heart. BONUS: This edition contains a Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet discussion guide and an excerpt from Jamie Ford's Love and Other Consolation Prizes.
Download or read book Kingdoms of Elfin written by Sylvia Townsend Warner and published by Handheld Classics. This book was released on 2018-10-31 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sylvia Townsend Warner's final collection of short stories contains sixteen sly and enchanting stories of Elfindom.
Download or read book That Night written by Alice McDermott and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2013-11-21 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'A stunning work' Sunday Times 'That Night has universal appeal ... there is a depth of feeling here which is beautifully - and seriously - realised' Independent ______________________ The evocative second novel from National Book Award winner Alice McDermott On a warm suburban night, the sound of lawn sprinklers is drowned out by the rumble of hot rods. Suddenly, a car careens onto a family's neat front yard, teenage boys spill out brandishing chains and leather, and a young man cries out for the girl he loves. Tonight, fathers will pick up snow shovels and rakes to defend their turf, and children will witness a battle fuelled by fierce, true love. This is the night they will talk about and remember as the moment things changed for ever.
Download or read book After the Death of Don Juan written by Sylvia Townsend Warner and published by New York : Viking Press. This book was released on 1939 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Corner written by David Simon and published by Crown. This book was released on 2013-03-13 with total page 578 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The crime-infested intersection of West Fayette and Monroe Streets is well-known--and cautiously avoided--by most of Baltimore. But this notorious corner's 24-hour open-air drug market provides the economic fuel for a dying neighborhood. David Simon, an award-winning author and crime reporter, and Edward Burns, a 20-year veteran of the urban drug war, tell the chilling story of this desolate crossroad. Through the eyes of one broken family--two drug-addicted adults and their smart, vulnerable 15-year-old son, DeAndre McCollough, Simon and Burns examine the sinister realities of inner cities across the country and unflinchingly assess why law enforcement policies, moral crusades, and the welfare system have accomplished so little. This extraordinary book is a crucial look at the price of the drug culture and the poignant scenes of hope, caring, and love that astonishingly rise in the midst of a place America has abandoned.
Download or read book The Rings of Saturn written by W. G. Sebald and published by New Directions Publishing. This book was released on 2016-11-08 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The book is like a dream you want to last forever" (Roberta Silman, The New York Times Book Review), now with a gorgeous new cover by the famed designer Peter Mendelsund A masterwork of W. G. Sebald, now with a gorgeous new cover by the famed designer Peter Mendelsund The Rings of Saturn—with its curious archive of photographs—records a walking tour of the eastern coast of England. A few of the things which cross the path and mind of its narrator (who both is and is not Sebald) are lonely eccentrics, Sir Thomas Browne’s skull, a matchstick model of the Temple of Jerusalem, recession-hit seaside towns, wooded hills, Joseph Conrad, Rembrandt’s "Anatomy Lesson," the natural history of the herring, the massive bombings of WWII, the dowager Empress Tzu Hsi, and the silk industry in Norwich. W.G. Sebald’s The Emigrants (New Directions, 1996) was hailed by Susan Sontag as an "astonishing masterpiece perfect while being unlike any book one has ever read." It was "one of the great books of the last few years," noted Michael Ondaatje, who now acclaims The Rings of Saturn "an even more inventive work than its predecessor, The Emigrants."
Download or read book The Line That Held Us written by David Joy and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2019-07-09 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An accidental death, and the cover-up that follows, sparks a dark series of events that reverberates through the lives of four people who will never be the same again. When Darl Moody went hunting after a monster buck, a kill that could make the difference between meat for the winter and an empty freezer, he never expected he'd accidentally shoot a man digging ginseng. Worse yet, he's killed a Brewer, a family notorious for vengeance and violence. With nowhere to turn, Darl calls on the help of the only man he knows will answer, his best friend, Calvin Hooper. But when Dwayne Brewer comes looking for his missing brother and stumbles onto a blood trail leading straight back to Darl and Calvin--and to Calvin's girlfriend, Angie--a nightmare of revenge rips apart their world. A story of friendship and family, The Line That Held Us is a tale balanced between destruction and redemption, where the only hope is to hold on tight, clenching those you love. From a writer whose stories are "like a pull from a bottle of Appalachian moonshine: smooth and elegant with a punch in the gut that lingers a while after you're done" (Garden & Gun), Joy's book is another masterwork of Southern noir.
Download or read book To Calais In Ordinary Time written by James Meek and published by Canongate Books. This book was released on 2019-08-29 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: SHORTLISTED FOR THE WALTER SCOTT PRIZE FOR HISTORICAL FICTION LONGLISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL FICTION A BOOK OF THE YEAR IN THE TIMES, GUARDIAN, SUNDAY TIMES, DAILY EXPRESS, SCOTSMAN and SPECTATOR Three journeys. One road. England, 1348. A gentlewoman flees an odious arranged marriage, a Scots proctor sets out for Avignon and a young ploughman in search of freedom is on his way to volunteer with a company of archers. All come together on the road to Calais. Coming in their direction from across the Channel is the Black Death, the plague that will wipe out half of the population of Northern Europe. As the journey unfolds, overshadowed by the archers' past misdeeds and clerical warnings of the imminent end of the world, the wayfarers must confront the nature of their loves and desires. A tremendous feat of language and empathy, it summons a medieval world that is at once uncannily plausible, utterly alien and eerily reflective of our own. James Meek's extraordinary To Calais, In Ordinary Time is a novel about love, class, faith, loss, gender and desire - set against one of the biggest cataclysms of human history.
Download or read book In Cold Blood written by Truman Capote and published by Modern Library. This book was released on 2013-02-19 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best nonfiction books of all time From the Modern Library’s new set of beautifully repackaged hardcover classics by Truman Capote—also available are Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Other Voices, Other Rooms (in one volume), Portraits and Observations, and The Complete Stories Truman Capote’s masterpiece, In Cold Blood, created a sensation when it was first published, serially, in The New Yorker in 1965. The intensively researched, atmospheric narrative of the lives of the Clutter family of Holcomb, Kansas, and of the two men, Richard Eugene Hickock and Perry Edward Smith, who brutally killed them on the night of November 15, 1959, is the seminal work of the “new journalism.” Perry Smith is one of the great dark characters of American literature, full of contradictory emotions. “I thought he was a very nice gentleman,” he says of Herb Clutter. “Soft-spoken. I thought so right up to the moment I cut his throat.” Told in chapters that alternate between the Clutter household and the approach of Smith and Hickock in their black Chevrolet, then between the investigation of the case and the killers’ flight, Capote’s account is so detailed that the reader comes to feel almost like a participant in the events.
Download or read book We Have Always Lived in the Castle written by Shirley Jackson and published by . This book was released on 1962 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We Have Always Lived in the Castle is a deliciously unsettling novel about a perverse, isolated, and possibly murderous family and the struggle that ensues when a cousin arrives at their estate.
Download or read book Bring Up the Bodies written by Hilary Mantel and published by Henry Holt and Company. This book was released on 2012-05-08 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 2012 Man Booker Prize Winner of the 2012 Costa Book of the Year Award The sequel to Hilary Mantel's 2009 Man Booker Prize winner and New York Times bestseller, Wolf Hall delves into the heart of Tudor history with the downfall of Anne Boleyn Though he battled for seven years to marry her, Henry is disenchanted with Anne Boleyn. She has failed to give him a son and her sharp intelligence and audacious will alienate his old friends and the noble families of England. When the discarded Katherine dies in exile from the court, Anne stands starkly exposed, the focus of gossip and malice. At a word from Henry, Thomas Cromwell is ready to bring her down. Over three terrifying weeks, Anne is ensnared in a web of conspiracy, while the demure Jane Seymour stands waiting her turn for the poisoned wedding ring. But Anne and her powerful family will not yield without a ferocious struggle. Hilary Mantel's Bring Up the Bodies follows the dramatic trial of the queen and her suitors for adultery and treason. To defeat the Boleyns, Cromwell must ally with his natural enemies, the papist aristocracy. What price will he pay for Anne's head? Bring Up the Bodies is one of The New York Times' 10 Best Books of 2012, one of Publishers Weekly's Top 10 Best Books of 2012 and one of The Washington Post's 10 Best Books of 2012
Download or read book Caged written by Ellison Cooper and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2018-07-10 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: FBI profiler Sayer Altair hunts a brilliant serial killer with a dangerous obsession in Caged, a gripping thriller from debut author Ellison Cooper. In a residential Washington, D.C. neighborhood, a young woman's body is found in the basement of an abandoned house--starved to death in a cage, along with the video footage of a dark and deadly ritual. The victim is identified as the daughter of a prominent D.C. politician, and it falls to the FBI to track down the unconscionable psychopath who murdered her. FBI special agent Sayer Altair would rather conduct research on criminality than catch actual criminals. But when she's offered a promotion hinging on her next assignment, she reluctantly accepts the "Cage Killer" case. Taunted by a photo of another victim at the mercy of this vicious killer, Sayer and her team are driven to put an end to these grisly homicides. During the investigation, clues emerge connecting the murders to Sayer's past. Now, the stakes are personal, and the deeper Sayer is drawn into the deadly web, the more she believes she is the only one who can uncover the killer's identity. Told with devastating detail, shocking twists and unrelenting suspense, Cooper proves her exceptional ability to entertain and enthrall.
Download or read book These Precious Days written by Ann Patchett and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2021-11-23 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The beloved New York Times bestselling author reflects on home, family, friendships and writing in this deeply personal collection of essays. "The elegance of Patchett’s prose is seductive and inviting: with Patchett as a guide, readers will really get to grips with the power of struggles, failures, and triumphs alike." —Publisher's Weekly “Any story that starts will also end.” As a writer, Ann Patchett knows what the outcome of her fiction will be. Life, however, often takes turns we do not see coming. Patchett ponders this truth in these wise essays that afford a fresh and intimate look into her mind and heart. At the center of These Precious Days is the title essay, a surprising and moving meditation on an unexpected friendship that explores “what it means to be seen, to find someone with whom you can be your best and most complete self.” When Patchett chose an early galley of actor and producer Tom Hanks’ short story collection to read one night before bed, she had no idea that this single choice would be life changing. It would introduce her to a remarkable woman—Tom’s brilliant assistant Sooki—with whom she would form a profound bond that held monumental consequences for them both. A literary alchemist, Patchett plumbs the depths of her experiences to create gold: engaging and moving pieces that are both self-portrait and landscape, each vibrant with emotion and rich in insight. Turning her writer’s eye on her own experiences, she transforms the private into the universal, providing us all a way to look at our own worlds anew, and reminds how fleeting and enigmatic life can be. From the enchantments of Kate DiCamillo’s children’s books (author of The Beatryce Prophecy) to youthful memories of Paris; the cherished life gifts given by her three fathers to the unexpected influence of Charles Schultz’s Snoopy; the expansive vision of Eudora Welty to the importance of knitting, Patchett connects life and art as she illuminates what matters most. Infused with the author’s grace, wit, and warmth, the pieces in These Precious Days resonate deep in the soul, leaving an indelible mark—and demonstrate why Ann Patchett is one of the most celebrated writers of our time.
Download or read book The Book of Lost Things written by John Connolly and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2006-11-07 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A 12-year-old boy, mourning the death of his mother, takes refuge in the myths and fairytales she always loved--and finds that his reality and a fantasy world start to meld.
Download or read book The Hand That First Held Mine written by Maggie O'Farrell and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2011-01-25 with total page 383 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the best-selling author of Hamnet and The Marriage Portrait comes a spellbinding novel of two women connected across fifty years by art, love, betrayals, secrets, and motherhood. "An exquisitely sensual tale of love, motherhood, and other forms of madness, The Hand That First Held Mine will unsettle, move, and haunt you." —Emma Donoghue, author of Room Lexie Sinclair is plotting an extraordinary life for herself. Hedged in by her parents' genteel country life, she plans her escape to London. There, she takes up with Innes Kent, a magazine editor who introduces her to the thrilling, underground world of bohemian, post-war Soho. She learns to be a reporter, to know art and artists, to embrace her life fully and with a deep love at the center of it. And when she finds herself pregnant, she doesn't hesitate to have the baby on her own. Later, in present-day London, a young painter named Elina dizzily navigates the first weeks of motherhood. She doesn't recognize herself: she finds herself walking outside with no shoes; she goes to the restaurant for lunch at nine in the morning; she can't recall the small matter of giving birth. But for her boyfriend, Ted, fatherhood is calling up lost memories, with images he cannot place. As Ted's memories become more disconcerting and more frequent, it seems that something might connect these two stories—these two women—something that becomes all the more heartbreaking and beautiful as they all hurtle toward its revelation. Praised by The Washington Post as a “breathtaking, heart-breaking creation,” The Hand That First Held Mine is a gorgeous and tenderly wrought story about the ways in which love and beauty bind us together. It is a gorgeous inquiry into the ways we make and unmake our lives, who we know ourselves to be, and how even our most accidental legacies connect us.
