Download or read book Thunderstruck Other Stories written by Elizabeth McCracken and published by Random House. This book was released on 2014-06-05 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the author of the beloved novel The Giant's House - finalist for the National Book Award - comes a beautiful new story collection, her first in twenty years. Laced through with humour, empathy, and rare and magical descriptive powers these nine vibrant stories navigate the fragile space between love and loneliness. In 'Property', a young scholar, grieving the sudden death of his wife, decides to refurbish the Maine rental house they were to share together by removing his landlord's possessions. In 'Peter Elroy: A Documentary by Ian Casey', the household of a successful filmmaker is visited years later by his famous first subject, whose trust he betrayed. And in the unforgettable title story, a family makes a quixotic decision to flee to Paris for a summer, only to find their lives altered in an unimaginable way by their teenage daughter's risky behaviour. In Elizabeth McCracken's universe, heartache is always interwoven with strange, charmed moments of joy - an unexpected conversation with small children, the gift of a parrot with a bad French accent - that remind us of the wonder and mystery of being alive. Thunderstruck & Other Stories shows this inimitable writer working at the full height of her powers.

Download or read book Thunderstruck Other Stories written by Elizabeth McCracken and published by Dial Press Trade Paperback. This book was released on 2015-08-18 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: WINNER OF THE STORY PRIZE • LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD • NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NEWSDAY NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Washington Post • San Francisco Chronicle • O: The Oprah Magazine • The Miami Herald • Publishers Weekly • Kirkus Reviews Look for special features inside. Join the Random House Reader’s Circle for author chats and more. From the author of the beloved novel The Giant’s House—finalist for the National Book Award—comes a beautiful new story collection, her first in twenty years. Laced through with the humor, the empathy, and the rare and magical descriptive powers that have led Elizabeth McCracken’s fiction to be hailed as “exquisite” (The New York Times Book Review), “funny and heartbreaking” (The Boston Globe), and “a true marvel” (San Francisco Chronicle), these nine vibrant stories navigate the fragile space between love and loneliness. In “Property,” selected by Geraldine Brooks for The Best American Short Stories, a young scholar, grieving the sudden death of his wife, decides to refurbish the Maine rental house they were to share together by removing his landlord’s possessions. In “Peter Elroy: A Documentary by Ian Casey,” the household of a successful filmmaker is visited years later by his famous first subject, whose trust he betrayed. In “The Lost & Found Department of Greater Boston,” the manager of a grocery store becomes fixated on the famous case of a missing local woman, and on the fate of the teenage son she left behind. And in the unforgettable title story, a family makes a quixotic decision to flee to Paris for a summer, only to find their lives altered in an unimaginable way by their teenage daughter’s risky behavior. In Elizabeth McCracken’s universe, heartache is always interwoven with strange, charmed moments of joy—an unexpected conversation with small children, the gift of a parrot with a bad French accent—that remind us of the wonder and mystery of being alive. Thunderstruck & Other Stories shows this inimitable writer working at the full height of her powers. Praise for Thunderstruck & Other Stories “Restorative, unforgettable . . . a powerful testament to the scratchy humor and warm intelligence of McCracken’s writing.”—Sylvia Brownrigg, The New York Times Book Review (Editor’s Choice) “[A] bewitching and wise collection . . . playful, even joyful.”—O: The Oprah Magazine “Stunningly beautiful . . . brilliantly moving . . . Moments of joy and pure magic flicker and pitch-perfect humor acts as a furtive SOS signal through the fog of loss.”—Los Angeles Times “Each of Thunderstruck’s nine stories is a storm: delightful and destructive, packed with electricity, fascinating to watch unfold.”—Salon “The stories here are brilliant, funny and heartbreaking. . . . Elizabeth McCracken is a national treasure.”—Paul Harding, The Wall Street Journal “Pure delight: one lyrical, impeccably constructed sentence after another.”—Chicago Tribune “Beautifully wrought . . . As painstaking as a watchmaker, McCracken disassembles life down to its smallest parts.”—The Boston Globe

Download or read book Thunderstruck written by Erik Larson and published by Crown. This book was released on 2006-10-24 with total page 481 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A true story of love, murder, and the end of the world’s “great hush.” In Thunderstruck, Erik Larson tells the interwoven stories of two men—Hawley Crippen, a very unlikely murderer, and Guglielmo Marconi, the obsessive creator of a seemingly supernatural means of communication—whose lives intersect during one of the greatest criminal chases of all time. Set in Edwardian London and on the stormy coasts of Cornwall, Cape Cod, and Nova Scotia, Thunderstruck evokes the dynamism of those years when great shipping companies competed to build the biggest, fastest ocean liners; scientific advances dazzled the public with visions of a world transformed; and the rich outdid one another with ostentatious displays of wealth. Against this background, Marconi races against incredible odds and relentless skepticism to perfect his invention: the wireless, a prime catalyst for the emergence of the world we know today. Meanwhile, Crippen, “the kindest of men,” nearly commits the perfect murder. With his unparalleled narrative skills, Erik Larson guides us through a relentlessly suspenseful chase over the waters of the North Atlantic. Along the way, he tells of a sad and tragic love affair that was described on the front pages of newspapers around the world, a chief inspector who found himself strangely sympathetic to the killer and his lover, and a driven and compelling inventor who transformed the way we communicate.

Download or read book Thunderstruck One Man s Story of Mental Illness Trauma and Redemption written by Michael J. Jarosi and published by Informed Source LLC. This book was released on 2019-06-18 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thunderstruck is a man's story of mental illness, trauma, and redemption.Michael Jarosi had a loving family, athletic promise, and had earned a soccer scholarship to The University of Virginia. But two weeks before his high school graduation, Michael and his father Frank were both struck by lightning on a soccer field. Frank was killed and Michael, standing yards away, was rendered unconscious and burned. The lightning strike left Michael with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) which went undiagnosed and untreated for years.After his third year at college, Michael was hospitalized and diagnosed with type I bipolar disorder. The remainder of his adult life has been marked by bipolar manic episodes and hospitalizations. Michael escaped an Alabama criminal psychiatric facility where he was being tortured, and has also been homeless.Along the way, Michael earned a law degree at age 35, passed the Ohio Bar Exam, and is a licensed attorney today. After being homeless then taken in by a Salvation Army shelter in Chicago in 2015, Michael has been on a path of redemption. He believes that making people with mental illness part of the paradigm of diversity and inclusion can help change the societal stigma toward people with mental illness, and especially help heal the self-stigma that is so damaging and even deadly.

Download or read book The Giant s House written by Elizabeth McCracken and published by Random House. This book was released on 1997 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The year is 1950, and in a small town on Cape Cod twenty-six-year-old librarian Peggy Cort feels like love and life have stood her up. Until the day James Carlson Sweatt'the "over-tall" eleven-year-old boy who's the talk of the town'walks into her library and changes her life forever. Two misfits whose lonely paths cross at the circulation desk, Peggy and James are odd candidates for friendship, but nevertheless they soon find their lives entwined in ways that neither one could have predicted. In James, Peggy discovers the one person who's ever really understood her, and as he grows - six foot five at age twelve, then seven feet, then eight - so does her heart and their most singular romance"--Back cover

Download or read book An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination written by Elizabeth McCracken and published by Hachette+ORM. This book was released on 2008-09-10 with total page 116 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This is the happiest story in the world with the saddest ending," writes Elizabeth McCracken in her powerful, inspiring memoir. A prize-winning, successful novelist in her 30s, McCracken was happy to be an itinerant writer and self-proclaimed spinster. But suddenly she fell in love, got married, and two years ago was living in a remote part of France, working on her novel, and waiting for the birth of her first child. This book is about what happened next. In her ninth month of pregnancy, she learned that her baby boy had died. How do you deal with and recover from this kind of loss? Of course you don't -- but you go on. And if you have ever experienced loss or love someone who has, the company of this remarkable book will help you go on. With humor and warmth and unfailing generosity, McCracken considers the nature of love and grief. She opens her heart and leaves all of ours the richer for it.

Download or read book Niagara Falls All Over Again written by Elizabeth McCracken and published by Delta. This book was released on 2002-11-26 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By turns graceful and knowing, funny and moving, Niagara Falls All Over Again is the latest masterwork by National Book Award finalist and author of The Giant’s House, Elizabeth McCracken. Spanning the waning years of vaudeville and the golden age of Hollywood, Niagara Falls All Over Again chronicles a flawed, passionate friendship over thirty years, weaving a powerful story of family and love, grief and loss. In it, McCracken introduces her most singular and affecting hero: Mose Sharp — son, brother, husband, father, friend ... and straight man to the fat guy in baggy pants who utterly transforms his life. To the paying public, Mose Sharp was the arch, colorless half of the comedy team Carter and Sharp. To his partner, he was charmed and charming, a confirmed bachelor who never failed at love and romance. To his father and sisters, Mose was a prodigal son. And in his own heart and soul, he would always be a boy who once had a chance to save a girl’s life — a girl who would be his first, and greatest, loss. Born into a Jewish family in small-town Iowa, the only boy among six sisters, Mose Sharp couldn’t leave home soon enough. By sixteen Mose had already joined the vaudeville circuit. But he knew one thing from the start: “I needed a partner,” he recalls. “I had always needed a partner.” Then, an ebullient, self-destructive comedian named Rocky Carter came crashing into his life — and a thirty-year partnership was born. But as the comedy team of Carter and Sharp thrived from the vaudeville backwaters to Broadway to Hollywood, a funny thing happened amid the laughter: It was Mose who had all the best lines offstage. Rocky would go through money, women, and wives in his restless search for love; Mose would settle down to a family life marked by fragile joy and wrenching tragedy. And soon, cracks were appearing in their complex relationship ... until one unforgivable act leads to another and a partnership begins to unravel. In a novel as daring as it is compassionate, Elizabeth McCracken introduces an indelibly drawn cast of characters — from Mose’s Iowa family to the vagabond friends, lovers, and competitors who share his dizzying journey — as she deftly explores the fragile structures that underlie love affairs and friendships, partnerships and families. An elegiac and uniquely American novel, Niagara Falls All Over Again is storytelling at its finest — and powerful proof that Elizabeth McCracken is one of the most dynamic and wholly original voices of her generation.

Download or read book Notes for the Everlost written by Kate Inglis and published by Shambhala Publications. This book was released on 2018-09-18 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Part memoir, part handbook for the heartbroken, this powerful, unsparing account of losing a premature baby will speak to all who have been bereaved and are grieving, and offers inspiration on moving forward, gently integrating the loss into life. When Kate Inglis’s twin boys were born prematurely, one survived and the other did not. Inglis’s story can help other bereaved parents, and anyone who has experienced wrenching loss, reflect on: · what it means to keep living post-loss · the unique isolation of bereavement · the fortitude of like-minded community and small kindnesses · dealing with family, friends, and bystanders Inglis’s unique voice—brash, irreverent, and achingly beautiful—creates a nuanced picture of the landscape of grief, encompassing waves of disbelief and emptiness, moments of unexpected affinity and lightness, and the compassion that grows from our most intense chapters of the human experience.

Download or read book Gifts of the Dark Wood written by Rev. Eric Elnes and published by Abingdon Press. This book was released on 2015-09-01 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Have you left the faith you used to have but don’t know what to move toward? When you can’t see the road ahead, do you feel lost and alone? Do you wish you had a group of companions willing to wander with you? Welcome to the Dark Wood. As you journey through the unknown, you may feel tempted, lost, and uncertain. Though commonly feared and avoided, these feelings of uncertainty can be your greatest assets on this journey because it is in uncertainty that we probe, question, and discover. According to the ancients, you don’t need to be a saint or spiritual master to experience profound awakening and live with God’s presence and guidance. You need only to wander. In clear and lucid prose that combines the heart of a mystic, the soul of a poet, and the mind of a biblical scholar, Dr. Eric Elnes demystifies the seven gifts bestowed in the Dark Wood: the gifts of uncertainty, emptiness, being thunderstruck, getting lost, temptation, disappearing, and the gift of misfits. This is a book for anyone who feels awkward in their search for God, anyone who seeks to find holiness amid their holy mess, and anyone who prefers practicality to piety when it comes to finding their place in this world.

Download or read book The Girl with Ghost Eyes written by M. H. Boroson and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2015-11-03 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “The Girl with Ghost Eyes is a fun, fun read. Martial arts and Asian magic set in Old San Francisco make for a fresh take on urban fantasy, a wonderful story that kept me up late to finish.” —#1 New York Times bestselling author Patricia Briggs It’s the end of the nineteenth century in San Francisco’s Chinatown, and ghost hunters from the Maoshan traditions of Daoism keep malevolent spiritual forces at bay. Li-lin, the daughter of a renowned Daoshi exorcist, is a young widow burdened with yin eyes—the unique ability to see the spirit world. Her spiritual visions and the death of her husband bring shame to Li-lin and her father—and shame is not something this immigrant family can afford. When a sorcerer cripples her father, terrible plans are set in motion, and only Li-lin can stop them. To aid her are her martial arts and a peachwood sword, her burning paper talismans, and a wisecracking spirit in the form of a human eyeball tucked away in her pocket. Navigating the dangerous alleys and backrooms of a male-dominated Chinatown, Li-lin must confront evil spirits, gangsters, and soulstealers before the sorcerer’s ritual summons an ancient evil that could burn Chinatown to the ground. With a rich and inventive historical setting, nonstop martial arts action, authentic Chinese magic, and bizarre monsters from Asian folklore, The Girl with Ghost Eyes is also the poignant story of a young immigrant searching to find her place beside the long shadow of a demanding father and the stigma of widowhood. In a Chinatown caught between tradition and modernity, one woman may be the key to holding everything together. Skyhorse Publishing, under our Night Shade and Talos imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of titles for readers interested in science fiction (space opera, time travel, hard SF, alien invasion, near-future dystopia), fantasy (grimdark, sword and sorcery, contemporary urban fantasy, steampunk, alternative history), and horror (zombies, vampires, and the occult and supernatural), and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller, a national bestseller, or a Hugo or Nebula award-winner, we are committed to publishing quality books from a diverse group of authors.

Download or read book The Souvenir Museum written by Elizabeth McCracken and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2023-01-26 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'One of my favourite writers' Nick Hornby One of the most acclaimed writers of our day, award-winning author Elizabeth McCracken is an undisputed virtuoso of the short story, and this new collection features her most vibrant and heartrending work to date. A recent widower and his adult son ferry to a craggy Scottish island in search of puffins. An actress who plays a children's game-show villainess ushers in the New Year with her deadbeat half-brother. And on a trip to a water park with their son, two fathers each confront a deep-rooted personal fear. With sentences that crackle and spark and showcase her trademark wit, McCracken shows how the mysterious bonds of family are tested, transformed, fractured, and fortified. 'McCracken has a gift for spotting the comic potential in situations many of us have endured... Her prose is stippled with just-so observations' Observer 'McCracken is a totally assured performer- even seemingly throwaway perceptions are often memorably poetic, and there is a hint of melancholy under the comedy' Sunday Times 'This incisive, warm-blooded collection of stories is populated by outsiders... McCracken illuminates qualities of human nature through fragments of her characters' lives' New Yorker

Download or read book Inappropriate Behavior written by Murray Farish and published by Milkweed Editions. This book was released on 2014-03-17 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Short fiction about people on the edge that “masterfully balances the absurd, the horrific, and the humorous” (Booklist). The characters in Inappropriate Behavior teeter on the brink of sanity, while those around them reach out in support, watch helplessly, or duck for cover. In their loneliness, they cast about for a way to connect, to be understood, though more often than not, things go horribly wrong. Some of the characters come from the darkest recesses of American history. In ‘Lubbock Is Not a Place of the Spirit,’ a Texas Tech student recognizable as John Hinckley, Jr. writes hundreds of songs for Jodie Foster as he grows increasingly estranged from reality. Other characters are recognizable only in the sense that their situations strike an emotional chord. The young couple in ‘The Thing About Norfolk,’ socially isolated after a cross-country move, are dismayed to find themselves unable to resist sexually deviant urges. And in the deeply touching title story, a couple stretched to their limit after the husband’s layoff struggle to care for their emotionally unbalanced young son. Set in cities across America and spanning the last half-century, this collection draws a bead on our national identity, distilling our obsessions, our hauntings, our universal predicament. “Gripping and accomplished . . . These stories will be compared with works by Barry Hannah and Denis Johnson.” —Janet Peery, National Book Award finalist and author of The Exact Nature of Our Wrongs

Download or read book The Transit of Venus written by Shirley Hazzard and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-03-09 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The award-winning, New York Times bestselling literary masterpiece of Shirley Hazzard—the story of two beautiful orphan sisters whose fates are as moving and wonderful, and yet as predestined, as the transits of the planets themselves A Penguin Classic Considered "one of the great English-language novels of the twentieth century" (The Paris Review), The Transit of Venus follows Caroline and Grace Bell as they leave Australia to begin a new life in post-war England. From Sydney to London, New York, and Stockholm, and from the 1950s to the 1980s, the two sisters experience seduction and abandonment, marriage and widowhood, love and betrayal. With exquisite, breathtaking prose, Australian novelist Shirley Hazzard tells the story of the displacements and absurdities of modern life. The result is at once an intricately plotted Greek tragedy, a sweeping family saga, and a desperate love story.

Download or read book Lethal Passage written by Erik Larson and published by Vintage. This book was released on 1995-01-15 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This devastating book illuminates America's gun culture -- its manufacturers, dealers, buffs, and propagandists -- but also offers concrete solutions to our national epidemic of death by firearm. "Touches on all aspects of the gun issue in this country. Gives great voice to that feeling...that something real must be done." --San Diego Union-Tribune "One of the most readable anti-gun treatises in years." --Washington Post Book World It begins with an account of a crime that is by now almost commonplace: on December 16, 1988, sixteen-year-old Nicholas Elliot walked into his Virginia high school with a Cobray M-11/9 and several hundred rounds of ammunition tucked in his backpack. By day's end, he had killed one teacher and severely wounded another. In Lethal Passage Erik Larson shows us how a disturbed teenager was able to buy a weapon advertised as "the gun that made the eighties roar." The result is a book that can -- and should -- save lives, and that has already become an essential text in the gun-control debate.

Download or read book Creative Types written by Tom Bissell and published by Pantheon. This book was released on 2021-12-14 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the best-selling coauthor of The Disaster Artist and “one of America's best and most interesting writers" (Stephen King), a new collection of stories that range from laugh-out-loud funny to disturbingly dark—unflinching portraits of women and men struggling to bridge the gap between art and life A young and ingratiating assistant to a movie star makes a blunder that puts his boss and a major studio at grave risk. A long-married couple hires an escort for a threesome in order to rejuvenate their relationship. An assistant at a prestigious literary journal reconnects with a middle school frenemy and finds that his carefully constructed world of refinement cannot protect him from his past. A Bush administration lawyer wakes up on an abandoned airplane, trapped in a nightmare of his own making. In these and other stories, Tom Bissell vividly renders the complex worlds of characters on the brink of artistic and personal crises—writers, video-game developers, actors, and other creative types who see things slightly differently from the rest of us. With its surreal, poignant, and sometimes squirm-inducing stories, Creative Types is a brilliant new offering from one the most versatile and talented writers working in America today.

Download or read book Bowlaway written by Elizabeth McCracken and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2019-02-05 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A sweeping and enchanting new novel from the widely beloved, award-winning author Elizabeth McCracken about three generations of an unconventional New England family who own and operate a candlepin bowling alley From the day she is discovered unconscious in a New England cemetery at the turn of the twentieth century—nothing but a bowling ball, a candlepin, and fifteen pounds of gold on her person—Bertha Truitt is an enigma to everyone in Salford, Massachusetts. She has no past to speak of, or at least none she is willing to reveal, and her mysterious origin scandalizes and intrigues the townspeople, as does her choice to marry and start a family with Leviticus Sprague, the doctor who revived her. But Bertha is plucky, tenacious, and entrepreneurial, and the bowling alley she opens quickly becomes Salford’s most defining landmark—with Bertha its most notable resident. When Bertha dies in a freak accident, her past resurfaces in the form of a heretofore-unheard-of son, who arrives in Salford claiming he is heir apparent to Truitt Alleys. Soon it becomes clear that, even in her death, Bertha’s defining spirit and the implications of her obfuscations live on, infecting and affecting future generations through inheritance battles, murky paternities, and hidden wills. In a voice laced with insight and her signature sharp humor, Elizabeth McCracken has written an epic family saga set against the backdrop of twentieth-century America. Bowlaway is both a stunning feat of language and a brilliant unraveling of a family’s myths and secrets, its passions and betrayals, and the ties that bind and the rifts that divide.

Download or read book Thunderstruck written by Ali Sparkes and published by Oxford University Press - Children. This book was released on 2017-03-02 with total page 145 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What if your new best friend was a ghost? Getting struck by lightning whilst huddling under a tree isn't exactly the way Alisha and Theo would have chosen to get out of sports day . . . Surviving the strike makes them see life differently. It also makes them notice Doug and Lizzie. Struck by lightning under that same tree on the common in 1975, the two teenagers have been hanging out there ever since. Doug and Lizzie are funny, clever, brave - and quite happy about making friends with a pair of ten-year-olds. OK, fair point, they are dead, and Doug's trousers are worryingly flared. But you can't have everything. But something sinister is going on at school - although only Theo and Alisha seem to be able to see it. What can it mean when ragged faceless entities keep staring in through the windows? Not all ghosts are friendly like Doug and Lizzie . . . but are these phantoms really the harbingers of doom for all the kids at Beechwood Junior? A fun and fast-paced ghostly mystery with lightning strike