Harold Brodkey's masterful first volume of short fiction, with two never-before anthologized stories. When originally published in 1958, First Love and Other Sorrows won Harold Brodkey widespread acclaim and announced a brilliant new arrival on the literary scene. Brodkey was hailed as an "unusually gifted writer" (The Atlantic) and a "rich talent" (San Francisco Chronicle), whose stories read like "murmured confidences, highly personal yet carefully contrived" (Chicago Tribune). In First Love and Other Sorrows, the young Brodkey chronicles the world of the educated and affluent middle class of the 1950s, at leisure and in love. He establishes the themes that would appear throughout his career--the painful uncertainties of childhood, the halting intimacies of social life--with rare terness, humor, and haunting insight. Two new stories, never before collected, from Brodkey's early writings join the original volume to complete a much-loved classic.

When Whiting Writers' Award winner Teddy Wayne published his critically acclaimed debut, "Kapitoil," it was hailed as "one of the best novels of [this] generation" by the "Boston Globe" and was shortlisted for a spate of national prizes. Jonathan Franzen wrote in "The Daily Beast" that "no other writer, as far as I know, has invented such a funny and compelling voice and story for [this type of character.]" Now, in "The Love Song of Jonny Valentine," Wayne turns his sharp wit, flawless narrative ventriloquism, and humane sensibility to our monstrous obsession with fame. Megastar Jonny Valentine, eleven-year-old icon of bubblegum pop, knows that the fans don't love him for who he is. The talented singer's image, voice, and even hairdo have been relentlessly packaged--by his L.A. label and his hard-partying manager-mother, Jane--into bite-size pabulum. But within the marketing machine, somewhere, Jonny is still a vulnerable little boy, perplexed by his budding sexuality and his heartthrob status, dependent on Jane, and endlessly searching for his absent father in Internet fan sites, lonely emails, and the crowds of faceless fans. Poignant, brilliant, and viciously funny, told through the eyes of one of the most unforgettable child narrators, this literary masterpiece explores with devastating insight and empathy the underbelly of success in 21st-century America. "The Love Song of Jonny Valentine "is a tour de force by a standout voice of his generation.

The sequel to the phenomenal national bestseller and enduring classic Love Story. Can the love of your life appear twice in a lifetime? Oliver Barrett IV found his soulmate in Jenny Cavilleri. Their love was magical and exhilarating...and though heartbreakingly brief, it was a love to last a lifetime. Two years have passed since Jenny was taken from him, and Oliver believes he will never love again. Then one day, Marcie--beautiful and mysterious--enters his world and suddenly the future holds new promise. From the running track in New York's Central Park to the hushed executive suites of a mightly department store empire, from a snowy Massachusetts Christmas to a shattering moment of turth in exotic Hong Kong--the story of Oliver Barrett IV is a story of passion and principle, of a young man's journey out of sadness, into love.

Leo Ware may be young, but he knows what he wants. And what he wants is Will Highland. Snarky, sophisticated, fiercely opinionated Will Highland, who burst into Leo's unremarkable life like a supernova... and then was gone just as quickly. For the past miserable year, Leo hasn't been able to stop thinking about the powerful connection he and Will shared. So, when Leo moves to New York for college, he sweeps back into Will's life, hopeful that they can pick up where they left off. What begins as a unique friendship soon burns with chemistry they can't deny... though Will certainly tries. But Leo longs for more than friendship and hot sex. A romantic to his core, Leo wants passion, love, commitment-everything Will isn't interested in giving. Will thinks romance is a cheesy fairy tale and love is overrated. He likes his space and he's happy with things just the way they are, thank you very much. Or is he? Because as he and Leo get more and more tangled up in each other's lives, Will begins to act like maybe love is something he could feel after all.

Allison Lee is seventeen and off to college in the fall. So far, she’s been in love once (total catastrophe) and on fire twice (also pretty bad). Both love and fire have left their scars. Looking a little more burnt chicken and a little less radiant phoenix, Allison takes up residence in Dylan Hall (a.k.a. Dyke Hall) at St. Joseph’s College, where she discovers the true gift of freshman year: the opportunity to reinvent yourself. Miles away from the high school she’s happy to leave behind, her all-female dorm is a strange new world, home to new social circles and challenges. Allison still feels like the odd girl out ... until Shar appears. Beautiful and blinding, Shar quickly becomes the sun at the centre of Allison’s universe, drawing her in with dangerous allure. Will Allison get burned again? And, if she does … what kind of scars will she earn this time?

Sodom and Gomorrah (1921/22) is the fourth volume of Marcel Proust's seven-part novel In Search of Lost Time . Being the last volume that had Proust's direct involvement, Sodom and Gomorrah is a story of love, jealousy and family from a master of Modernist literature. Praised by Virginia Woolf, Vladimir Nabokov, Michael Chabon, and Graham Greene, In Search of Lost Time explores the nature of memory and time while illuminating the history of homosexuality in nineteenth century Europe. The narrator finally reveals what he witnessed before Princess de. Guermantes' party: Charlus followed Jupien into his shop and the two shared an intimate encounter. Returning to the festivities, the narrator reflects on the very nature of inverts and the secret society of which they must belong. Attempting to put the suffering of his grandmother out of his mind, he tries with some success to pursue the companionship of Albertine; only to grow suspicious of her activities and possible lesbianism. Trying desperately to find a place in this social circle, the narrator finds himself engulfed by jealousy and trapped in a world of romance, lust, and secrets of which he is now willfully taking part. This edition of Marcel Proust's Sodom and Gomorrah is a classic work of French literature reimagined for modern readers. Since our inception in 2020, Mint Editions has kept sustainability and innovation at the forefront of our mission. Each and every Mint Edition title gets a fresh, professionally typeset manuscript and a dazzling new cover, all while maintaining the integrity of the original book. With thousands of titles in our collection, we aim to spotlight diverse public domain works to help them find modern audiences. Mint Editions celebrates a breadth of literary works, curated from both canonical and overlooked classics from writers around the globe.

"Gail is in trouble at school. Saint Saviour's, the exclusive private girls school that she attends on a scholarship, cannot contain her. Impulsive, bored and looking for someone to adore, she is at that dangerous age when you want to be picked up by men and then driven home by your mother. Ezra is rich, powerful and at the top of his game. His comfortable middle age is tainted only by the knowledge that, in his heady youth, he'd loved new wave music and had people killed - and by his crushing anxieties about his teenage daughter, Agata. When Agata starts at Saint Saviour's, Gail and Ezra's paths cross, and with an unstoppable momentum, their lives intertwine in ways more dangerous than either could ever predict."--Provided by publisher.

'Francesa Segal is precise and funny, and The Awkward Age is brimming with keen observations of the highest order--the clever, the sore, and the sublime.' Emma Straub In a Victorian terraced house, in north-west London, two families have united in imperfect harmony. After five years of widowhood, Julia has fallen deeply, unexpectedly in love. James is everything she never knew she wanted - if only her beloved teenaged daughter, Gwen, didn't hate him so much. At the very least, Gwen could be civil to James's son, Nathan. Bringing together two households is never easy, but Gwen's struggle for independence will test her mother's loyalty, and her unexpected actions will threaten this fragile new happiness. The Awkward Age is about the new family; about starting over, about the attempt to build something beautiful amid the mess and complexity of what came before. It is a story about standing by the ones we love, even while they hurt us. We would do anything to make our children happy. But how much should we give?

They met as children, innocents from two different worlds. And from that moment their lives were fated to be forever entwined. Timothy : Abandoned at birth, he finds a home--and a dazzling career--within the Catholic Church. But the vows he takes cannot protect him from one soul-igniting passion. Daniel : The scholarly son of a great rabbi, he is destined to follow in his father's footsteps. And destined to break his father's heart. Deborah : She was raised to be docile and dutiful--the perfect rabbi's wife--but love will lead her to rebellion. And into world's the patriarch would never dare imagine. Reaching across more than a quarter of a century, from the tough streets of Brooklyn to ultramodern Brasilia to an Israeli kibbutz, and radiating the splendor of two holy cities, Rome and Jerusalem, here is Erich Segal's most provocative and ambitious novel to date--the unforgettable story of three extraordinary lives...and one forbidden love. From the Paperback edition.

Jesse has two best friends. He's in love with both of them. Jesse Dienstag's favorite sweatshirt says, "The real world isn't real." That's the slogan of the vacation-home community in Pennsylvania where his family has always spent every vacation and weekend for as long as he can remember. In the summer of 2019, as Jesse is about to enter his junior year of high school in New York City, he desperately wants to believe the slogan is true. For one thing, the two girls he loves -- equally and desperately -- are in Pennsylvania, and all the stresses and pressures of his daily life and school are in New York. But when his parents stop talking to each other, it gets harder and harder for Jesse to maintain his dream life in Pennsylvania. And when Covid shuts New York City down in March 2020, just days after Jesse’s mother leaves his father, Jesse's worlds collide.

Lucas Baird is on the lam. He accidentally killed a man in LA. Totally defensible, but he chose to run, as he has done most of his aimless twenty-four years of life. This time Luke ends up in New York, making love to Daisy on a beach on Long Island. A sudden storm traps him under debris in a rain sewer where he is held captive by a gang of kids under the sway and prod of a fiendish twelve-year-old town bully. The kids, in dreadful fear of their tyrannical master, turn savage, heaping hideous acts of torment and cruelty upon poor Luke. P> How he manages to free himself becomes a redemptive tale woven into the fabric of a fraught, bizarre love story reminiscent of THE BEACH and LORD OF THE FLIES.

Thomas Penman is the acclaimed autobiographical debut novel by Oscar-winning screenwriter Bruce Robinson, the author of "Withnail and I". This is the story of a dysfunctional family. It is about a boy and his grandpa, life and death, sex and hate, dog's meat and cancer. It is also about pornography, enemas, Morse codes, puberty, secrets, God and loathing. It is also about love.

"As intriguing and impressive a novelist as she is a musician, Hval is a master of quiet horror and wonder.” —Chris Kraus, author of I Love Dick A lyrical debut novel from a musician and artist renowned for her sharp sexual and political imagery Jo is in a strange new country for university and having a more peculiar time than most. In a house with no walls, shared with a woman who has no boundaries, she finds her strange home coming to life in unimaginable ways. Jo’s sensitivity and all her senses become increasingly heightened and fraught, as the lines between bodies and plants, dreaming and wakefulness, blur and mesh. This debut novel from critically acclaimed artist and musician Jenny Hval presents a heady and hyper-sensual portrayal of sexual awakening and queer desire.

Born into slavery, adopted as an infant by a princess, and raised in the palace of mighty Pharaoh, Moses struggles to define himself. And so do the three women who love him: his own embittered mother, forced to give him up by Pharaoh's decree; the Egyptian princess who defies her father and raises Moses as her own child; and his headstrong sister Almah, who discovers a greater kinship with the Egyptian deities than with her own God of the Hebrews. Told by Moses and his sister Almah from alternating points of view, this stunning novel by Newbery Honor-author Julius Lester probes questions of identity, faith, and destiny.

"The titular character, Ghalen, is a brilliant young Black man who is the son of an endearing neurodivergent man and a gifted, astute, and empathic woman. His parents' grand love story takes up the first third of the book and sets you up to know Ghalen so fully and invest in this family (and their extended friend/family) so deeply, that each new twist and turn feels personal. The journey through Ghalen's coming-of-age tale, as he ventures out into the world is marked with peaks and valleys and such a drive that you can't help but strap in for it all, while not wanting it to end"-- Provided by publisher.

This vivid and colorful memoir recounts the experience of a Jewish-American man growing up during the turmoil of the Bush and Obama eras and dealing with the 2008 recession, crazy relatives, depression, failed romances, political and law careers, and foreign adventures in Israel, South Korea, and China. It contains richly detailed portraits of 2000's American life and the various fascinating cities of America, from New York to Chicago to New Orleans. It also has outrageous sexual comedy, Jewish shtick, and provides a serious look at the social issues facing the modern United States, from welfare to homelessness to the expense of college and over-competitiveness in the workforce. A must-read for people of what Newsweek has dubbed "Generation Screwed." If you enjoyed "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn", you'll love this. Its a heartfelt and at times hilarious commentary on our American life.

“A moving act of absolution . . . . This strong novel about a girl who is debased but never destroyed pushes the reader to a new level of understanding of the things people do—and the things that are done to them.”— Washington Post Book World She has hair of ginger and lovely green eyes, and she has just been transported with her family from Terezín to Auschwitz. In short order, her father commits suicide, and her mother and younger brother are dispatched to the gas chambers, but fifteen-year-old Hanka Kauderzová is still alive. Faced with the choice of certain death in the camp or working in a German military brothel, she chooses a chance at life. Passing for an Aryan, Hanka spends her days in the brothel cold, hungry, fearful, and ashamed. She is sustained only by her loathing of the men who visit her and by a fierce, indomitable will to live. This devastatingly beautiful novel explores and delineates the impossible choices one sometimes has to make in life, when the fabric of the world is rent asunder. Soaring beyond the nightmare, it leaves the reader with a transcendent sense of hope. Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade, Yucca, and Good Books imprints, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in fiction—novels, novellas, political and medical thrillers, comedy, satire, historical fiction, romance, erotic and love stories, mystery, classic literature, folklore and mythology, literary classics including Shakespeare, Dumas, Wilde, Cather, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

Seventeen-year-old Elizabeth Stein returns from a year of madness to discover that everything she’s ever known is falling apart, leaving her to fight for happiness in a life filled with confusion and turbulence as she untangles the mysteries of the past in this “beautiful and significant book about love” ( The New York Times). Seventeen going on thirty, Elizabeth Stein has just survived three suicide attempts and a stint of treatment in numerous mental hospitals. Returning to the mother that everyone desires and a father sliding into alcoholism, as well as two lovers and all the freedom in the world, she is unsure how to move forward with scars on her wrist, scars on her soul, and all of life’s problems dancing in her head. In this rich and sensual novel, as timeless as Catcher in the Rye and as moving as Ordinary People , Elizabeth sets out on a journey of discovery, courage, hope, and fear. After a year when the loneliness and pain seemed to have no end, she is back in the world again. Now is the time when she must search for the meaning in the madness, all while fighting for happiness and facing the future for the first time on her own.

This 1927 novel by Oppenheim revisits the plot device of a young man who comes into a large fortune suddenly and explores the class differences between the lower middle, and the upper class. In South America, a young Englishman steals the wife, baby girl, and money of two contemptible criminals. 15 years later, they come to England intent on revenge. In Norfolk, a young leather salesman, Martin Barnes, is wandering the streets late at night, when he is drawn into a mysterious and imposing house. While there, he is given a huge fortune by Lord Ardrington who is dying, and who wishes to disinherit his undeserving nephew. Suddenly wealthy, Martin begins to experience a change of attitude and inclination. He becomes a sudden snob, turning his nose up at his former friends and quickly abandoning (with cause) his fiancé. Returning to London, Martin meets Gerald Garnham, the disinherited nephew of Lord Ardrington, and Lady Blanche Banningham, beautiful, athletic, bohemian, and sympathetic. How will Martin handle his new fortune? Will the two evil men succeed in revenge against Ardrington and his adopted daughter. Will Martin find love, or even acceptance by society?