In her delightful reimagining of A Midsummer’s Night Dream , Amanda Craig slyly serves up a witty cross-cultural farce, a modern-day tale of love and lies set against the magical landscape of Tuscany. When Theo, a workaholic lawyer, his English wife Polly, and their two children rent an idyllic Italian villa, they expect a relaxing summer holiday together. Polly, with her loved ones’ romantic interests at heart, has invited an eccentric mix of friends and family along--including three eligible bachelors, a former model, an Indian-British divorcee with a young son, and her own appalling mother-in-law. They soon discover the Casa Luna is a strange, enchanted place where people find their heart's desire—but at a price. Everyone falls in love, though not with the people they expect, and the results are surprising and hilarious.

Following the travails of a set of wealthy families in the harbor-front community of Orange County, California, The O.C. has become an instant success that goes beyond the Tiger Beat crowd. Audiences recognize and appreciate its witty dialogue and self-awareness, but trying to discuss the merits of a teen drama from the same network that aired Beverly Hills 90210 has left mature viewers blue in the face. Alan Sepinwall's "Stop Being a Hater and Learn to Love The O.C." is a support group of a solution, and a fun look at this television phenomenon for fans of all ages.

A group of six young Londoners--three men and three women--embark on a series of sexual adventures, misadventures, triumphs, and failures with one another, until these casual indiscretions begin to have profound and irreversible consequences for them all. Original.

A volume of essays evaluates how modern-world circumstances, from gay adoption and absent fathers to open marriages and green-card marriages are changing the domestic scene today, in an anthology that includes contributions by such figures as ZZ Packer, Dan Savage, and Min Jin Lee. 20,000 first printing.

The New Yorker reviewer's inimitable reviews from 1988-1991.

The incredible story of Émile Zola's escape to London in the aftermath of the scandalous Dreyfus Affair. It is the evening of July 18, 1898 and the world-renowned novelist Émile Zola is on the run. His crime? Taking on the highest powers in the land with his open letter "J'accuse"—and losing. Forced to leave Paris with nothing but the clothes he is standing in and a nightshirt wrapped in newspaper, Zola flees to England with no idea when he will return. This is the little-known story of Zola's time in exile. Rosen has traced Zola's footsteps from the Gare du Nord to London, examining the significance of this year. The Disappearance of Émile Zola offers an intriguing insight into the mind, the loves, and the politics of the great writer during this tumultuous era in his life.

With her trademark humor and insight, bestselling author Lois Wyse has written a moving collection of stories, anecdotes, and poems that evoke the life lessons we learn as we repaint, refurnish, and redecorate in search of a place to call home. She reminds us in this delightful celebration of the adorable honeymoon cottages, rotten first apartments, houses to remember (and forget), and mortgaged mansions ... all the paths to our dream houses, and to the lives and loves we make there. Nesting helps each of us remember that, after all, there's no place like home.

St. John of the Cross was a Catholic saint and mystic who played a key role in the 16th century's Counter-Reformation. This is one of his treatises.

A psychotherapist explores the significant impact of the fear of child loss on mothers throughout history, revealing how such feelings affect mothers' lives at home, in the workplace, and in the social hierarchy.

A meditation on the transforming nature of intimacy, stripped to its essentials in the relationship between patient and therapist." "When she begins therapy for depression after breast cancer treatment, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick brings with her an extraordinarily open and critical mind, but also shyness about revealing herself and fear. Resisting easy responses to issues of dependence, vulnerability, desire, and mortality, she warily commits to a male therapist who shares little of her cultural and intellectual world." "Although not without pain, their improvised relationship is as unexpectedly pleasurable as her writing is unconventional: Sedgwick combines dialogue, verse, and even her therapist's notes to explore her interior life - her responses to terminal illness, her close relationships to gay male friends, the risky terrain of sexual fantasies, and the grace of her engagement with Buddhism.

Fred and Sharon Cox are each having an affair with their Japanese tutor, and their moody teenager is about to run off with one or the other of their twin Salvadoran housekeepers.

When four members of a wealthy household are killed in their suburban Chicago mansion, shock reverberates around the quiet community. The only witness is a small child, and with the obvious culprit soon behind bars, it seems like an open-and-shut case. Enter Cameron Winter. Winter -- a spy turned English professor -- has a unique knack for solving complicated crimes. Despite the lead detective blocking his involvement, Winter discovers this seemingly safe suburban paradise is concealing something dark, something that people want to keep hidden -- and he will do anything to bring the truth to light.

Set in Jewish London in the 1930s, Susan Glickman's The Violin Lover is written against the backdrop of Hitler's escalating campaign against the Jews. This beautifully written novel tells the story of Clara Weiss and Ned Abraham, "the violin lover," brought together by Clara's 11-year-old son, Jacob. A successful doctor and amateur violinist, Ned is pressured to practice a duet with Jacob by the boy's piano teacher. Though reluctant at first, Ned is charmed by the young prodigy and surprised by Jacob's dedication and passion for music. In him Ned sees his younger self, so young and full of promise. A friendship is soon built on a mutual love for music. A dinner invitation to spend Passover with the Weiss family seals Ned's fate and a clandestine love affair begins. Although they both agree that no one must ever know — especially not Clara's family — their affair inevitably comes to a crashing end, with disastrous, life-altering consequences. Unfolding like a melody, The Violin Lover is infused with music and told in three voices. It is a powerful novel about the love one feels for family, friends, culture, faith and music, and the passion that comes with it — regardless of the outcome.

A screamingly defiant, hugely naughty, and impossibly fun free fall past catwalks, red carpets, and even the halls of Buckingham Palace, GORGEOUS is now in paperback! Eighteen-year-old Becky Randle is an ordinary girl who receives an impossible offer. She meets Tom Kelly, the world's top designer, and he promises to create three dresses to transform her from a nothing-special girl into the Most Beautiful Woman Who Ever Lived.Becky thinks Tom is a lunatic, or that he's producing a hidden camera show called World's Most Gullible Poor People. But she accepts, and she's remade as Rebecca. When Becky looks in the mirror, she sees herself -- an awkward mess of split ends and cankles. But when anyone else looks at Becky, they see pure five-alarm hotness.Soon Rebecca is on the cover of Vogue and the new Hollywood darling. Then she meets Prince Gregory, heir to the British throne, and everything starts to crumble. Because Rebecca aside, Becky loves him. But to love her back, Gregory would have to look past the blinding Rebecca to see the real girl inside. And for that, there's not enough magic in the world.

Not so long ago Emilio Brentani was a promising young author. Now he is an insurance agent on the fast track to forty. He gains a new lease on life, though, when he falls for the young and gorgeous Angiolina-except that his angel just happens to be an unapologetic cheat. But what begins as a comedy of infatuated misunderstanding ends in tragedy, as Emilio's jealous persistence in his folly-against his friends' and devoted sister's advice, and even his own best knowledge-leads to the loss of the one person who, too late, he realizes he truly loves. Marked by deep humanity and earthy humor, by psychological insight and an elegant simplicity of style, As a Man Grows Older ( Senilità , in Italian; the English title was the suggestion of Svevo's great friend and admirer, James Joyce) is a brilliant study of hopeless love and hapless indecision. It is a masterwork of Italian literature, here beautifully rendered into English in Beryl de Zoete's classic translation.