BOOKER PRIZE WINNER • When romance writer Edith Hope’s life begins to resemble the plots of her own novels, she flees to Switzerland, where the quiet luxury of the Hotel du Lac promises to restore her to her senses. "Brookner's most absorbing novel ... wryly realistic ... graceful and attractive." —Anne Tyler, The New York Times Book Review But instead of peace and rest, Edith finds herself sequestered at the hotel with an assortment of love's casualties and exiles. She also attracts the attention of a worldly man determined to release her unused capacity for mischief and pleasure. Beautifully observed, witheringly funny, Hotel du Lac is Brookner at her most stylish and potently subversive. In the novel that won her the Booker Prize and established her international reputation, Anita Brookner finds a new vocabulary for framing the eternal question "Why love?"

Who knows you better than your best friend? Who knows your secrets, your fears, your desires, your strange imperfect self? Edi and Ash have been best friends for over forty years. Since childhood they have seen each other through life's milestones: stealing vodka from their parents, the Madonna phase, REM concerts, unexpected wakes, marriages, infertility, children. As Ash notes,[Bokinfo]

Jules is confronted headlong and all at once by a series of challenges to his principles, livelihood, and home, forcing him to grapple with his complex past and find a way forward. He risks fraud to save his terminally ill infant grandson, matches wits with a renegade insurance investigator, is drawn into an act of savage violence, and falls deeply, excitingly in love with a young cellist a third his age. He forges a denouement that is staggering in its humanity, elegance, and truth.

The Kempton-Wace Letters was a 1903 epistolary novel written jointly by Americans Jack London and Anna Strunsky, then based in San Francisco, California. The novel presents a discussion of the philosophy of love and sex, written in the form of a series of letters between two men, "Herbert Wace," a young scientist, and "Dane Kempton," an elderly poet. Writer Jack London wrote "Wace's" letters, and Anna Strunsky wrote "Kempton's." In the late 19th century, the authors were part of a San Francisco radical literary group known as "The Crowd."Kempton makes the case for feeling and emotion, while Wace proceeds "scientifically" and analyzes love in Darwinian terms:

The seven stories collected here showcase McCarthy's formidable powers of observation, her deliciously witty writing style, and her celebrated talent for dissecting characters with biting acuity. A young woman looks for subtle (and not-so-subtle) ways to escape her unsatisfying marriage; an innocuous single man's friends realize his companionship has an enormous price; and an Italian guide puzzles a traveling pair of Americans.

An intimately charged novel of desire and disaster from the National Book Award-winning author of Trust Exercise and Flashlight Regina Gottlieb had been warned about Professor Nicholas Brodeur long before arriving as a graduate student at his prestigious university high on a pastoral hill. He’s said to lie in the dark in his office while undergraduate women read couplets to him. He’s condemned on the walls of the women’s restroom, and enjoys films by Roman Polanski. But no one has warned Regina about his exceptional physical beauty—or his charismatic, volatile wife. My Education is the story of Regina’s mistakes, which only begin in the bedroom, and end—if they do—fifteen years in the future and thousands of miles away. By turns erotic and completely catastrophic, Regina’s misadventures demonstrate what can happen when the chasm between desire and duty is too wide to bridge.

In a time when steak, vodka, and Benzedrine were the three main staples of a healthy diet, when high-powered executives called each other "baby" and movie stars wore wigs to bed, network tycoons had a name for the TV set: they called it "the love machine." But to supermodel Amanda, socialite Judith, and journalist Maggie, "the love machine" meant something else: Robin Stone, "a TV-network titan around whom women flutter like so many moths. . . . The novel deals with his rise and fall as he makes the international sex scene (orgying in London, transvestiting in Hamburg), drinks unlimited quantities and checks out the latest Nielsens." (Newsweek)

Within a Budding Grove (1919) is the second volume of Marcel Proust's seven-part novel In Search of Lost Time . Written while Proust was virtually confined to his bedroom from a lifelong respiratory illness, Within a Budding Grove is a story of memory, history, family, and romance 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. After years of admiring the Swann family from a distance, the narrator befriends the lovely young Gilberte. Through her, he gains access to her parents and their home, where artists and intellectuals gather to discuss their lofty ideals alongside the latest gossip. Despite his attraction to Gilberte, he finds himself enthralled with her mother, a careworn beauty so often ignored by her husband. As he grows and learns, he begins to recognize the reality concealed by convention: the secret liaisons between lovers; the petty competitions of artists; the fleeting nature of affection and lust alike. Written in flowing prose, Within a Budding Grove is a masterpiece of twentieth century fiction that continues to entertain and astound over a century after it appeared in print. This edition of Marcel Proust's Within a Budding Grove 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.

A captivating novel that evokes the author s "New York Times" bestseller "The House at Tyneford " Natasha Solomons s breathtaking new novel has it all: a love triangle, family obligations, and rediscovering joy in the face of grief, all set against the alluring backdrop of an English country estate. "It's a terrible thing to covet your brother s girl" New Year s Eve, 1946. Candles flicker, a gramophone scratches out a tune as guests dance and sip champagne for one night Hartgrove Hall relives better days. Harry Fox-Talbot and his brothers have returned from the war determined to save their once grand home from ruin. But the arrival of beautiful wartime singer Edie Rose tangles the threads of love and duty, and leads to a devastating betrayal. Fifty years later, now a celebrated composer, Fox reels from the death of his adored wife, Edie. Until his connection with his four-year old grandson - a piano prodigy propels him back into life, and ultimately to confront his past. An enthralling novel about love and treachery, joy after grief, and a man forced to ask: is it ever too late to seek forgiveness?"

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.

The glorious novel from the bestselling Lesley Lokko; an epic tale of three women whose lives interweave over decades. In a beachfront mansion in Martha's Vineyard, Annick and Rebecca relax, safe in the knowledge that their young children are in the care of life-long friend Tash. But by the end of the afternoon, one of the children will have vanished... Annick, daughter of an actress and an assassinated president, has spent her life running from the truth of her family's wealth. Rebecca has always done the right thing. Perfect daughter. Perfect wife. Perfect mother. She's beginning to wonder if she'll ever get chance to live for herself. And Tash, free from the poverty of her heritage, has the world at her feet. So why is she struggling to keep a grip on her life? This is the sweeping story of three very different women; their pasts, their secrets, and their friendship.

From the author of To Die For comes this poignant, stirring, and occasionally hilarious story of a woman's attempt to remake her life after a searing divorce. Maynard's novel captures love as one approaches middle age in contemporary America.

“[A] rollicking farce about the things we do for love...A perfect book for this moment.” — People “The genuinely hilarious Paul Rudnick” (Gary Shteyngart, New York Times bestselling author) returns with a witty, insightful new novel about the joy, delight, pain, and absurdity of love in an age of cynicism, divorce, and digital madness. A tech billionaire and the flight attendant he’s marrying. A TV superhero who used to be married to the flight attendant. A Manhattan book editor and the sensitivity associate who got him fired. A twenty-three-year-old wild child prodigy who’s perhaps the savior of American literature. A vengeful Arkansas sheriff who sells a vitamin-enriched, ten-pounds-off-today demulsifier. A Wall Street bro who raps on TikTok. Two dentists—possibly stalking each other. What do these people have in common? Invited or not, they’re all headed to the most anticipated destination wedding ever, on the billionaire’s private island, to seek romance, to cause mayhem, and to figure out everyone else’s futures and maybe even their own. Find out what happens in Paul Rudnick’s heartfelt new novel, which dares to pose the question essential to anyone who’s ever been in love: What Is Wrong with You?

This brilliant new novel by an American master, the author of Ragtime, The Book of Daniel, Billy Bathgate, and The March, takes us on a radical trip into the mind of a man who, more than once in his life, has been the inadvertent agent of disaster. Speaking from an unknown place and to an unknown interlocutor, Andrew is thinking, Andrew is talking, Andrew is telling the story of his life, his loves, and the tragedies that have led him to this place and point in time. And as he confesses, peeling back the layers of his strange story, we are led to question what we know about truth and memory, brain and mind, personality and fate, about one another and ourselves. Written with psychological depth and great lyrical precision, this suspenseful and groundbreaking novel delivers a voice for our times—funny, probing, skeptical, mischievous, profound. Andrew's Brain is a surprising turn and a singular achievement in the canon of a writer whose prose has the power to create its own landscape, and whose great topic, in the words of Don DeLillo, is “the reach of American possibility, in which plain lives take on the cadences of history.” Praise for Andrew's Brain “Too compelling to put down . . . fascinating, sometimes funny, often profound . . . Andrew is a provocatively interesting and even sympathetic character. . . . The novel seamlessly combines Doctorow's remarkable prowess as a literary stylist with deep psychological storytelling pitting truth against delusion, memory and perception, consciousness and craziness. . . . [Doctorow] takes huge creative risks—the best kind.” — USA Today “ Andrew's Brain is cunning. . . . [A] sly book . . . This babbling Andrew is a casualty of his times, binding his wounds with thick wrappings of words, ideas, bits of story, whatever his spinning mind can unspool for him. . . . One of the things that makes [Andrew] such a terrific comic creation is that he's both maddeningly self-delusive and scarily self-aware: He's a fool, but he's no innocent. . . . Andrew may not be able to enjoy his brain, but Doctorow, freely choosing to inhabit this character's whirligig consciousness, can.” — The New York Times Book Review “A tantalising tour de force . . . a journey worth taking . . . With exhilarating brio, the book plays off . . . two contrasting takes on mind and brain. . . . [ Andrew's Brain encompasses] an astonishing range of modes: vaudeville humour, tragic romance, philosophical speculation. . . . It fizzes with intellectual energy, verbal pyrotechnics and satiric flair.” — The Sunday Times (London) “Dramatic . . . cunning and beautiful . . . strange and oddly fascinating, this book: a musing, a conjecture, a frivolity, a deep interrogatory, a hymn.” — San Francisco Chronicle “Provocative . . . a story aswirl in a whirlpool of neuroscience, human relations, loss, guilt and recent American history . . . Doctorow reveals his mastery in the sheen of a text that is both window and mirror. Reading his work is akin to soaring in a glider. Buoyed by invisible breath, readers encounter stunning vistas stretching to horizons they've never imagined.” — The Plain Dealer “Andrew's ruminations can be funny, and his descriptions gorgeous.” —Associated Press “[An] evocative, suspenseful novel about the deceptive nature of human consciousness.” — More “A quick and acutely intelligent read.” — Entertainment Weekly From the Hardcover edition.

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...

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.”

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.

In this stunning debut novella, Rebecca Walker turns her attention to the power of love and the limitations of the human heart. When Farida, a sophisticated college student, falls in love with Adé, a young Swahili man living on an idyllic island off the coast of Kenya, the two plan to marry and envision a simple life together--free of worldly possessions and concerns. But when Farida contracts malaria and finds herself caught in the middle of a civil war, reality crashes in around them. The lovers' solitude is interrupted by a world in the throes of massive upheaval that threatens to tear them apart, along with all they cherish. Haunting, exquisite, and certain to become a classic, Adé will stay with you long after you put it down. This is a timeless love story set perfectly, heartbreakingly, in our time.

This is the author's first novel, which relates the experiences of a young bohemian intellectual. The six episodes create a fascinating portrait of a New York social circle of the 1930s. McCarthy's bold insight and virtuoso style won her immediate recognition as one of the most accomplished, versatile, and penetrating writers in americanca.