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.

Bestselling author Jonathan Lethem delivers a hilarious novel about love, art, and what it's like to be young in Los Angeles. Lucinda Hoekke's daytime gig as a telephone operator at the Complaint Line—an art gallery's high-minded installation piece—is about as exciting as listening to dead air. Her real passion is playing bass in her forever struggling, forever unnamed band. But recently a frequent caller, the Complainer, as Lucinda dubs him, has captivated her with his philosophical musings. When Lucinda's band begins to incorporate the Complainer's catchy, existential phrases into their song lyrics, they are suddenly on the cusp of their big break. There is only one problem: the Complainer wants in.

Twenty-five celebrated Latino writers delight and move us with their recollections of Christmas in this splendid holiday extravaganza. From Julia Alvarez's tale of how Santicl� delivered a beloved uncle from political oppression to Junot D�az's story of his own uneasy assimilation on his first Christmas in America, to Sandra Cisneros's poignant memories of her late father's holiday dinners, Las Christmas gives us true stories from writers of many traditions--memories of Christmas and Hanukkah that vividly capture the pride and pain, joy and heartbreak, that so often accompany the holidays in the Americas. Richly illustrated and embellished with songs and poems, along with recipes for an unforgettable Christmas dinner--from traditional sweet tamales to Puerto Rican asopao (stew) and coquito (coconut eggnog)--this is an enduring treasury of Latino writing to read again and again. A heartwarming holiday gift.

The actors in James Franco's brilliant debut novel include a McDonald's drive-thru operator who spends his shift trying on accents; an ex-child star recalling a massive beachside bacchanal; hospital volunteers and Midwestern transplants; a vampire flick starlet who discovers a cryptic book written by a famous actor gone AWOL; and the ghost of River Phoenix. Then there's Franco himself, who prowls backstage, peering out between the lines--before taking the stage with fascinating meditations on his art, along with nightmarish tales of excess. "Hollywood has always been a private club," he writes. "I open the gates. I say welcome. I say, Look inside." Told in a dizzying array of styles--from lyric essays and disarming testimonials to hilariously rambling text messages and ghostly footnotes--and loosely modeled on Alcoholics Anonymous's Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions , Actors Anonymous is an intense, wild ride into the dark heart of celebrity.

The sixteen stories collected here are spread over the farthest stretches of time and space, but even the bleakest of them is warmed by a passionate faith in the endurance of life and its ultimate possibilities. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

Published together for the first time are selections from all Kafka's writings: The Metamorphosis, Josephine The Singer, plus his short stories, parables, and his personal diaries and letters.

Zes studenten aan de Harvard Medical School hebben er in de jaren zestig alles voor over om hun doel te bereiken.

Longlisted for the 2013 National Book Award for Fiction Ashaunt Point, Massachusetts, has anchored life for generations of the Porter family, who summer along its remote, rocky shore. But in 1942, the U.S. Army arrives on the Point, bringing havoc and change. That summer, the two older Porter girls—teenagers Helen and Dossie—run wild while their only brother, Charlie, goes off to train for war. The children’s Scottish nurse, Bea, falls in love. And youngest daughter Janie is entangled in an incident that cuts the season short. An unforgettable portrait of one family’s journey through the second half of the twentieth century, Elizabeth Graver’s The End of the Point artfully probes the hairline fractures hidden beneath the surface of our lives and traces the fragile and enduring bonds that connect us.

Gregor?a teenaged boy, the lone survivor of his family?is hiding from the Germans in the forest. He hides in a cave, where he meets a mysterious stranger who saves his life. He hides in the village, posing as a deaf-mute peasant boy. He hides among the partisans of the Jewish resistance. But where, he asks, is God hiding? And where can one find redemption in a world that God has abandoned? In a story punctuated by friendship and fear, sacrifice and betrayal, Gregor's wartime wanderings take us deep into the ghost-filled inner world of the survivor.

Sent to a therapeutic community for autism at the age of eleven, Todd Aaron, now in his fifties, is the Old Fox of Payton LivingCenter. A joyous man who rereads the encyclopedia compulsively, he is unnerved by the sudden arrivals of a menacing new staffer and a disruptive, brain-injured roommate. His equilibrium is further worsened by Martine, a one-eyed new resident who has romantic intentions and convinces him to go off his meds to feel normal again. Undone by these pressures, Todd attempts an escape to return home to his younger brother and to a childhood that now inhabits only his dreams. Written astonishingly in the first-person voice of an autistic, adult man, Best Boy with its unforgettable portraits of Todd s beloved mother, whose sweet voice still sings from the grave, and a staffer named Raykene, who says that Todd reflects the beauty of His creation is a piercing, achingly funny, finally shattering novel no reader can ever forget."

In the streets of an ordinary Italian town, the people go about their everyday lives. In an old apartment block above them, a young man pores over photographs and plans, dedicated to his life's most important project. Day by day, in his imagination, he is rehearsing for his greatest performance. Yet when his moment comes, nothing could have prepared him for what happens...

Naomi and Nathan thrive on the yellow journalism of the social-media age. They are nomadic freelancers in pursuit of sensation and depravity. Naomi becomes engrossed about Célestine and Aristide Arosteguy, Marxist philosophers and sexual libertines. Célestine has been found dead and mutilated in her Paris apartment; police suspect Aristide of killing her and consuming parts of her body. Nathan, meanwhile, is in Budapest photographing the controversial work of an unlicensed surgeon. After sleeping with one of Molnár's patients, Nathan contracts a rare STD called Roiphe's. Their parallel narratives become entwined with 3-D printing, North Korea, the Cannes Film Festival and, in an incredible number of varieties, sex.

From the New York Times bestselling author of Inheritance and host of the hit podcast Family Secrets —”a cool depiction of a mother and daughter's fraught and fiery relationship” ( USA Today ). Clara Brodeur has spent her entire adult life pulling herself away from her famous mother, the renowned and controversial photographer Ruth Dunne, whose towering reputation rests on the unsettling nude portraits she took of her young daughter. At age eighteen, sick of her notoriety as “the girl in the pictures,” Clara fled New York City, settling and making her own family in small-town Maine. But years later, when Ruth reaches out from her deathbed, Clara suddenly finds herself drawn back to the past she thought she had escaped. From the beloved author of Family History and Slow Motion, a spellbinding novel that asks: How do we forgive those who failed to protect us?

""A World On The Wane"" is a thought-provoking book written by the eminent French anthropologist, Claude Levi-Strauss. In this book, Levi-Strauss explores the concept of cultural change and how it affects different societies around the world. He argues that the modern world is witnessing a decline in traditional cultures, which is leading to a loss of diversity and richness in human experience.Levi-Strauss draws on his extensive fieldwork and research to provide a comprehensive analysis of the forces that are driving cultural change. He examines the impact of globalization, technology, and economic development on traditional societies, and how these changes are affecting their social structures, values, and beliefs.The book is divided into three parts. The first part provides an overview of the concept of cultural change and its historical context. The second part explores the impact of globalization on traditional societies, while the third part focuses on the challenges and opportunities that arise from cultural change.Throughout the book, Levi-Strauss emphasizes the importance of preserving cultural diversity and the need for societies to find a balance between tradition and modernity. He argues that cultural change is not necessarily a bad thing, but it must be managed carefully to avoid the loss of valuable cultural heritage.Overall, ""A World On The Wane"" is a fascinating and insightful book that offers a unique perspective on the complex issues of cultural change and globalization. It is a must-read for anyone interested in anthropology, sociology, or cultural studies.This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the old original and may contain some imperfections such as library marks and notations. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions, that are true to their original work.

" 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.

Reissued to coincide with the release of the major motion picture directed by Steven Soderbergh, and with Robert Redford as executive producer, King of the Hill is the emotionally powerful story of a 12-year-old boy coping with the hardships of life in St. Louis in the summer of 1933. Originally published by Harper & Row in 1972.

NEW BOY is a dark modern comedy about the hormonal angst of a Jewish lad growing up in north-west London's bagel belt. "Sutcliffe has managed to pull off a worthy British companion to Portnoy's Complaint" Jay Rayner,Observer "Well-written,clever and very funny" Literary Review "Smart,entertaining stuff...somewhere between Adrian Mole and Holden Caulfield" Philip Hensher,Mail on Sunday