" And so begins the adventure of J.J. Smith, the keeper of the records for The Book of Records, and ordinary man searching for the extraordinary. He has verified the longest continuous kiss, the lenghiest single unbroken apple peel, the furthest flight of a champagne cork"... "But J.J. has a problem: his boss says his records are getting dull. Either he comes up with something special, or he's fired." - front inside dustcover.

In this moving, wry, and candid novel, widely acclaimed novelist Ayelet Waldman takes us through one woman’s passage through love, loss, and the strange absurdities of modern life.Emilia Greenleaf believed that she had found her soulmate, the man she was meant to spend her life with. But life seems a lot less rosy when Emilia has to deal with the most neurotic and sheltered five-year-old in New York City: her new stepson William. Now Emilia finds herself trying to flag down taxis with a giant, industrial-strength car seat, looking for perfect, strawberry-flavored, lactose-free cupcakes, receiving corrections on her French pronunciation from her supercilious stepson – and attempting to find balance in a new family that’s both larger, and smaller, than she bargained for. In Love and Other Impossible Pursuits Ayelet Waldman has created a novel rich with humor and truth, perfectly characterizing one woman’s search for answers in a crazily uncertain world.

A fabulous new novel by Amanda Craig, acclaimed author of The Lie of the Land and The Golden Rule, longlisted for the Women's Prize[Bokinfo]

From the author of Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick The Rules of Magic comes a transfixing glimpse into a small American town where a mysterious, magical garden holds the truth behind three hundred years of passion, dark secrets, loyalty, and redemption. “[A] dreamy, fabulist series of connected stories . . . [These] tales, with their tight, soft focus on America, cast their own spell.”— The Washington Post The Red Garden introduces us to the luminous and haunting world of Blackwell, Massachusetts, capturing the unexpected turns in its history and in our own lives. From the town's founder, a brave young woman from England who has no fear of blizzards or bears, to the young man who runs away to New York City with only his dog for company, the characters in The Red Garden are extraordinary and vivid: a young wounded Civil War soldier who is saved by a passionate neighbor, a woman who meets a fiercely human historical character, a poet who falls in love with a blind man, a mysterious traveler who comes to town in the year when summer never arrives. At the center of everyone’s life is a mysterious garden where only red plants can grow, and where the truth can be found by those who dare to look. Beautifully crafted and shimmering with magic, The Red Garden is as unforgettable as it is moving.

In “The Robot Who Looked Like Me,” a busy man and a busy woman find a way to carve out time to romance each other—by having look-alike robots made to do the job—who then run away together.The twelve other stories in this collection are “Slaves of Time,” “Voices,” “A Supplicant in Space,” “Sneak Previews,” “Zirn Left Unguarded, the Jenghik Palace in Flames, John Westerly Dead,” “Welcome to the Standard Nightmare,” “The Never-Ending Western Movie,” “What Is Life?”, “I See a Man Sitting on a Chair, and the Chair Is Biting His Leg,” “Is That What People Do?”, “Silversmith Wishes,” and “End City.”From the very beginning of his career, Robert Sheckley was recognized by fans, reviewers, and fellow authors as a master storyteller and the wittiest satirist working in the science fiction field. Open Road is proud to republish his acclaimed body of work, with nearly thirty volumes of full-length fiction and short story collections. Rediscover, or discover for the first time, a master of science fiction who, according to the New York Times , was “a precursor to Douglas Adams.”

Combining the moral seriousness of his American Trilogy with the furious energy he brought to "Sabbath's Theater" and "The Professor of Desire, " Roth performs a virtuosic set of variations on the theme of sexuality and its discontents. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

Evvie, Maggie, and Topher have known each other since university. Their friendship was something they swore would last forever. Now years have passed, the friends have drifted apart, and none of them ever found the lives they wanted - the lives they dreamed of when they were young and everything seemed possible. Evvie starved herself to become a supermodel but derailed her career by sleeping with a married man. Maggie married Ben, the boy she fell in love with at university, never imagining the heartbreak his drinking would cause. Topher became a successful actor but the shame of a childhood secret shut him off from real intimacy. By their thirtieth reunion, these old friends have lost touch with each other and with the people they dreamed of becoming. Together again, they have a second chance at happiness... until a dark secret is revealed that changes everything. The Friends We Keep is about how despite disappointments we've had or mistakes we've made, it's never too late to find a place to call home.

Twenty stories from the Nobel Prizewinner, including "Disguised," a transvestite tale of the yeshiva student whose deserted wife finds him dressed as a woman and married to a man, and the title story, which portrays Methuselah at the age of 969 -- "and when you pass your nine hundredth birthday, you are not what you used to be."

Spanning centuries and continents, Mamet uses war and its players to explore, among other themes, redemption and forgiveness as they unfold in the context of conflict in the form of three novellas. In The Redwing , the first of the three novellas, a 19th Century Secret Service naval officer turned prisoner, then novelist and finally memoirist recounts his own transformations during the course of his service and imprisonment. The protagonist in Notes on Plain Warfare examines religion through the prism of the American Indian wars. Finally, The Handle and the Hold is a vivid, dialogue-driven tale of two ex-military men who steal a plane in the month before the Israeli War of Independence. Finely wrought, Mamet eloquently depicts the psychological brutality conflict raises in the landscape of the mind.

Book by Malamud, Bernard

With her three children, beautiful home, and loving husband, Margaret Crane is a woman others would envy. Adam's job has cushioned them nicely over the years, and it should be a time of contentment, rewards, of new challenges together. But lately Adam has been working too late, too hard, at the office. Margaret is sure it's just the rumored takeover of his company--until she meets Randi, The Other Woman... Meanwhile, Nina, the orphaned cousin the Cranes raised as their own daughter, is reveling in New York. She thinks she's found Mr. Right in Keith, a brilliant investment banker. But Keith has a secret he has not shared with Nina. All he asks for is time...and patience. And as Nina clings to stolen weekends with Keith, Margaret plays dutiful wife, trying to ignore warning signs of her own failing marriage. A rift has developed between the two women who have loved each other as mother, daughter, friends. Keith is not welcome in Margaret's home. And Nina herself is the other woman...

A rich and riveting debut spanning four generations of Eastern European Jewish women bound by blood, half-hidden secrets, and the fantastical visitation of a shapeshifting stranger over the course of 100 years An ambitious, delirious novel that tangles with queerness, spirituality, and generational silence, City of Laughter announces Temim Fruchter as a fresh and assured new literary voice. The tale of a young queer woman stuck in a thicket of generational secrets, the novel follows her back to her family's origins, where ancestral clues begin to reveal a lineage both haunted and shaped by desire. Ropshitz, Poland, was once known as the City of Laughter. As this story opens, an 18th century badchan, a holy jester whose job is to make wedding guests laugh, receives a visitation from a mysterious stranger--bringing the laughter the people of Ropshitz desperately need, and triggering a sequence of events that will reverberate across the coming century. In the present day, Shiva Margolin, recovering from the heartbreak of her first big queer love and grieving the death of her beloved father, struggles to connect with her guarded mother, who spends most of her time at the local funeral home. A student of Jewish folklore, Shiva seizes an opportunity to visit Poland, hoping her family's mysteries will make more sense if she walks in the footsteps of her great-grandmother Mira, about whom no one speaks. What she finds will make her question not only her past and her future, but also her present. Electric and sharply intimate, City of Laughter zigzags between our universe and a tapestry of real and invented Jewish folklore, asking how far we can travel from the stories that have raised us without leaving them behind.

The three pieces gathered in The Strange Case of Rachel K roughly map the genesis of Rachel Kushner's fiction. From the fate of a conquistador in "The Great Exception," to the illegal radio broadcasts and then bombs in "Debouchment," to a Havana courtesan's "strange" case, these stories build into a vision of Cuba that is black-humored, brutal, and beautiful. In this collection, which "overflows in atmosphere as it shows off the burgeoning talent of one of our best writers" (NPR), Rachel Kushner is forging her own original path into the wilds of contemporary fiction.

"Superb...a series of masterly drawn glimpses into the storymaking art of one of Africa's great modern literary geniuses." -Alan Cheuse, NPR A selection of short stories written to date by Nobel Laureate Nadine Gordimer, Life Times reveals her acute understanding of human nature and paints a fascinatingly original portrait of South Africa. Whether focusing on politics, sexuality, race, love, or loss, Gordimer maps out the terrain of human relationships with razor-sharp psychological insight and a stunning lack of sentimentality. Complex and multifaceted, her stories challenge us, time and again, to examine the conflict between our actions and our unspoken desires. This powerful collection, which includes two new stories, is a testament to Gordimer's literary genius and the ongoing power and relevance of her vision.

This is a new release of the original 1935 edition.

From the author of The New York Times #1 best-selling novel The Carpetbaggers comes a tale of violence, sex, betrayal, revenge and intrigue. The Adventurers is a story of revolution and danger in the sultry jungles of South America.As a young boy, Diogenes Alejandro Xenos (¿Dax¿) witnesses the brutal rape and murder of his mother and sister by government troops¿experiencing the drama of revolution, loss, and tragedy firsthand. He is sent to Europe by the victorious rebel leader to rebuild his country¿s diplomatic and financial status post-revolution, and is immediately thrown into the elite environment of Europe¿s jet set society of international bankers and diplomats.Outwardly, Dax lives a life of privilege as one of the continent¿s most sought-after, hedonistic playboys¿wanted by men and women alike, but for very different reasons. Inside, however, he channels his fear, anger and hatred for the new regime, which he realizes is as corrupt as the old, into a desire to disrupt the status quo. Once a favorite of the general-turned-dictator, Dax quickly becomes an outlaw in his own country, living on the fringes of society as a rebel hell-bent on a new revolution.This epic tale of escape from the horrors of a third world regime is one of Harold Robbins' most ambitious novels ever, combining his trademark sensuality with political intrigue, a globe-spanning variety of exotic locales, and themes that never seem to change¿political intrigue, greed, power, money, violence, sex and betrayal.With Dax Xenos, Robbins thrills and excites us with one of his most memorable and intriguing characters¿a flawed and complicated hero.The Adventurers was one of Robbins¿ most successful novels, spending 41 weeks on The New York Times best sellers list. Today, this novel easily proves that Robbins¿ compelling prose still has the power to surprise, titillate, and move readers.

The final volume in a trilogy beginning with Umbrella and followed by Shark , Phone tells the story of two men: Zack Busner and Jonathan De'Ath. Busner is a psychiatrist who has made his name through his unorthodox treatment of psychological damage, such as administering LSD to World War II PTSD-sufferers. But now Busner's own mind is fraying: Alzheimer's is shredding his memory and his newest possession is a shiny smartphone given to him by his autistic grandson Ben. Meanwhile, Jonathan De'Ath, aka "the Butcher," is an MI6 man who remains a mystery even to those closest to him. Perhaps there is only one person who thinks of him with tenderness, a man he keeps top secret, encrypted in the databanks of his steely mind: Colonel Gawain Thomas, husband, father, highly trained tank commander, and Jonathan De'Ath's long-time lover. As Busner's mind totters and Jonathan and Gawain's affair teeters, they come to face the interconnectedness of all lives, online and off, while an irritating phone continues to ring. . . . ring. . . . ring. . . .

An exploration of how gay men and lesbians are abandoned by their families as soon as AIDS enters their lives, and the courageous and unusual ways they lead their lives, despite this loss.

The triumphant follow-up to the bestsellingBee Season,Wickett’s Remedyis an epic but intimate novel about a young Irish-American woman facing down tragedy during the Great Flu epidemic of 1918. Wickett’s Remedyleads us back to Boston in the early part of the 20th century and into the world of Lydia, an Irish-American shop girl yearning for a grander world than the cramped confines of South Boston. She seems to be well on her way to the life she has dreamed of when she marries Henry Wickett, a shy medical student and the scion of a Boston Brahmin family. Soon after their wedding, however, Henry shocks Lydia by quitting medical school and creating a mail-order patent medicine called Wickett’s Remedy. And then just as the enterprise is getting off the ground, the Spanish Influenza epidemic of 1918 begins its deadly sweep across the world, drastically changing their lives. In a world turned almost unrecognizable by swift and sudden tragedy, Lydia finds herself working as a nurse in an experimental ward dedicated to understanding the raging epidemic — through the use of human subjects. Meanwhile, we follow the fate of Henry’s belovedWickett’s Remedyas his one-time business partner steals the recipe and transforms it into QD Soda, a wildly popular soft drink. Based on years of research and evoking actual events,Wickett’s Remedyperfectly captures the texture of the times and brings a colourful cast of characters vividly to life, including a sad and funny chorus of the dead. With wit and dexterity, Goldberg has fashioned a novel that is both charming and grand.Wickett’s Remedyannounces her arrival as a major novelist. South Boston belonged to Lydia as profoundly and wordlessly as her thimble finger. Her knowledge of its streets was more complete than any atlas, her mental maps reflecting changes that occurred from season to season, day to day, and hour to hour. Each time she left 28 D Street — one among a row of identical triple-decker houses, the tenements lining the street like so many stained teeth — her route reflected this internal almanac. . . . For ten years this was enough. Then in fifth grade, Lydia saw a city map and realized her entire world was a mitten dangling from Boston’s sleeve. Across the bridge lay Washington Street — the longest street in all New England — which began like any other but then continued north, a single determined thread of cobblestone that wove itself through every town from Boston to Providence. Once Lydia saw Washington Street she knew she could not allow it to exist without her. —excerpt fromWickett's Remedy From the Hardcover edition.

It is time to elect a new abbess at the Convent of Crewe. There are two contenders: nuns Alexandra and Felicity. Alexandra is busy bugging the convent while Felicity calls the police when her love letters (to a young Jesuit priest) are stolen. A brilliant laugh-out-loud satire on the Watergate scandal.This is one of the 22 novels written by Muriel Spark in her lifetime. All are being published by Polygon in hardback Centenary Editions between November 2017 and September 2018.