2090 results for "Novel"

Andrew's Brain

E. L. Doctorow
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.
Random House Incorporated 2014 208 pages

Bucky F*cking Dent

Duchovny, David
"Ted Fullilove, aka Mr. Peanut, is not like other Ivy League grads. He shares an apartment with Goldberg, his beloved battery-operated fish, sleeps on a bed littered with yellow legal pads penned with what he hopes will be the next great American novel, and spends the waning malaise-filled days of the Carter administration at Yankee Stadium, waxing poetic while slinging peanuts to pay the rent. When Ted hears the news that his estranged father, Marty, is dying of lung cancer, he immediately moves back into his childhood home, where a whirlwind of revelations ensues. The browbeating absentee father of his youth is living to make up for lost time, but his health dips drastically whenever his beloved Red Sox lose. And so, with help from a crew of neighborhood old-timers and the lovely Mariana--Marty's Nuyorican grief counselor--Ted orchestrates the illusion of a Sox winning streak, enabling Marty and the Red Sox to reverse the Curse of the Bambino and cruise their way to World Series victory. Well, sort of David Duchovny's richly drawn Bucky F&%@ing Dent is a story of the bond between fathers and sons, Yankee fans and the Fenway faithful, and grapples with the urgent need to find our story in an age of irony and artifice. Culminating in that fateful moment in October of '78 when the meek Bucky Dent hit his way into baseball history with the unlikeliest of home runs, this tragicomic novel demonstrates that life truly belongs to the losers--that the long shots are the ones worth betting on. Bucky F&%@ing is a singular tale that brims with the hilarity, poignance, and profound solitude of modern life"--
Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2016-04-05 296 pages

The Free World

Bezmozgis, David
Welcome to Rome. It is the summer of 1978, and the Krasnansky family, bickering, tired and confused, are supposed to be passing through. Alongside thousands of other Soviet Jewish refugees – among them criminals, dissidents and refuseniks – they await passage to their new homes in the West. But escaping Communism is not so easy, especially when some of the Krasnanskys insist on bringing it with them, and even more so when their sponsor in the USA lets them down and they find that they’re no longer passing through at all. On the contrary, they’re stuck.Welcome, then, to the waiting room of your life, and to a tragic but comic tale of reckless brothers and long-suffering sisters, ailing parents and innocent children, of love affairs and criminal liaisons, of a wonderfully troubled family and a perpetually wandering people, and their epic search for a home: somewhere, anywhere – or Canada, as it turns out.The Free World is the glorious debut novel by David Bezmozgis, whose collection of stories was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award, and who was recently included in the New Yorker’s prestigious ‘20 under 40’ list.
HarperCollins Canada, Limited 2011-01-01 356 pages

Black & White

Dani Shapiro
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?
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group 2008-06-10 272 pages

The carousel

Plain, Belva
Best-selling author Belva Plain follows the enormous success of "Whispers" and "Daybreak" with another explosive novel that explores the realities simmering below the surface of a seemingly admirable Amencan family. In the opening pages of "The Carousel" a woman is looking at an exquisite music box, a silver carousel. She is pensive and reflects upon how this beautiful object has linked the momentous events of a family's life. She has married into that family, the Greys, whose successful business is nationally known. The sun has long shone upon the patriarch, Oliver Grey, his two sons Ian and Clive, and his niece and nephew, Amanda and Dan. Oliver has recently handed over control of the business to his two sons and his nephew. Amanda has a non-voting share. Now the sky has clouded over and terrible storms arise as a series of incidents threatens to destroy the family... Amanda is making furious demands upon the business. Ian's greed and his adultery collide with Clive's jealousy. And the five-year-old daughter of Dan and his wife has been the victim of sexual abuse. The Greys, pillars of their upstate New York community, are being torn apart. And before their ordeal comes to an end someone will be the victim of murder. As she did in the enormously successful "Whispers," Belva Plain tells a timely story of a family with a dark and dirty secret. With the additional touches of mystery--a new territory for Belva Plain --"The Carousel" confirms her place as one of our most compelling and popular writers. "The queen of the family saga writers...Belva Plain is in a class by herself." -- "The New York Times,"
Delacorte Press 1995 342 pages

Homecoming

Plain, Belva
From "The New York Times" bestselling author of "Promises" and "Secrecy" comes a stunning novel of a family divided and the proud matriarch who takes a bold last stand to unite her warring children in what may be their last "Homecoming." It is a crisp December day when Annette Byrne walks to the end of her long, curving driveway and drops five sealed envelopes into the mailbox. Quickly. Before second thoughts stay her hand. Shortly thereafter, with the holidays approaching, her estranged family, intimate enemies, will be gathered at her country estate for the first time in years. The sons. . . two brothers embittered by a breach of ethics, honor, and trust. The grandchildren. . . one young couple on the verge of divorce; another, lovingly united against the parents who have tarnished their lives. As the ill-fated meeting hurtles toward a bitter and abrupt conclusion, not even Annette Byrne's indomitable will can heal the rift--until a shattering event alters the landscape forever. With unerring insight and emotional power, Belva Plain has created a beautiful, heartrending story of healing, love, and forgiveness.
Delacorte Press 1997 212 pages

Heartwood

Belva Plain
Few authors have understood the tender intricacies of relationships better than the incomparable Belva Plain. For three decades her deeply moving epics have captivated the hearts and imaginations of readers everywhere. Now, in her final novel, she comes full circle with the themes she took up in her very first work, Evergreen , bringing us this unforgettable story of family and friendship, love and marriage, the challenges of life and the true secret of happiness. Though Iris Stern considers herself a modern woman, with a successful academic career and a happy marriage, she still holds steadfast to her old-fashioned sensibilities. But as the mother of three adult children, each with their own lives and burdens to bear, she often finds those sensibilities called into question when confronted with the choices her children have made. For one of Iris's daughters, it's the choice of a fresh start in New York City—and a last chance to save her troubled marriage. While Laura and Robbie cope with an impending separation and its effect on Iris's young granddaughter, Iris herself must come to grips with the discovery of a long-held family secret. But it's an emotional parting of another kind that looms most prominently on Iris's horizon—as neither her beloved husband, nor the solidity of her own marriage, is immune to the ravages of time. Through separations and reunions, the changes we cannot avoid and the love that sustains, Iris will weather whatever lies ahead with a faith that cannot be shaken. Like the inmost rings of a tree that abide through the generations, she will be as strong as heartwood. From the Hardcover edition.
Random House Large Print 2011 385 pages

Love and Other Impossible Pursuits

Ayelet Waldman
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.
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group 2007-01-09 352 pages

The story sisters

Hoffman, Alice
A haunting and emotionally satisfying novel from a much-loved and critically acclaimed author, which weaves fairy tale and gritty realism together to dazzlingly effect. 'The Story Sisters' charts the lives of three sisters - Elv, Claire and Meg. Each has a fate she must meet alone: one on a country road, one in the streets of Paris, and one in the corridors of her own imagination. Inhabiting their world are a charismatic man who cannot tell the truth, a neighbor who is not who he appears to be, a clumsy boy in Paris who falls in love and stays there, a detective who finds his heart's desire, and a demon who will not let go. What does a mother do when one of her children goes astray? How does she save one daughter without sacrificing the others? How deep can love go, and how far can it take you? At once a coming-of-age tale, a family saga, and a love story of erotic longing, 'The Story Sisters' sifts through the miraculous and the mundane as the girls become women and their choices haunt them, change them and, finally, redeem them.
HarperPress 2010 325 pages

The Guermantes way

Proust, Marcel
The third volume of one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century Mark Treharne's acclaimed new translation of The Guermantes Way will introduce a new generation of American readers to the literary richness of Marcel Proust. The third volume in Penguin Classics' superb new edition of In Search of Lost Time—the first completely new translation of Proust's masterpiece since the 1920s—brings us a more comic and lucid prose than English readers have previously been able to enjoy. After the relative intimacy of the first two volumes of In Search of Lost Time, The Guermantes Way opens up a vast, dazzling landscape of fashionable Parisian life in the late nineteenth century, as the narrator enters the brilliant, shallow world of the literary and aristocratic salons. Both a salute to and a devastating satire of a time, place, and culture, The Guermantes Way defines the great tradition of novels that follow the initiation of a young man into the ways of the world.
Penguin 2002 619 pages

Trouble is what I do

Mosley, Walter
Leonid McGill's spent a lifetime building his reputation as a private investigator in New York. His seemingly infallible instincts and inside knowledge of the crime world make him the ideal man to help when Phillip "Catfish" Worry comes knocking. Catfish is a ninety-four-year-old Mississippi blues-man who needs Leonid's help with a simple task: deliver a letter revealing the black lineage of a wealthy heiress and her corrupt father. The opportunity to do a simple favor while shocking the prevailing elite is impossible for Leonid to resist. But when a famed and feared assassin puts out a hit on Catfish, Leonid has no choice but to confront the ghost of his own felonious past. Working to protect his client, and his own family, Leonid needs to reach the heiress on the eve of her wedding before her powerful father kills those who hold their family's secret. Joined by a team of young and tough aspiring investigators, Leonid must gain the trust of wary socialites, outsmart vengeful thugs, and, above all, serve the truth -- no matter the cost.
Mulholland Books, Little, Brown and Company 2021 166 pages

Gray dawn

Mosley, Walter
"A number of below-the-law powerbrokers plead with Easy to locate a mysterious, dangerous woman--Lutisha James, though she's gone by another name that Easy will immediately recognize. 1970s Los Angeles is a transient city of delicate, violent balances, and Lutisha has disturbed that. She also has a secret that will upend Easy's own life, painfully closer to home." --
Mulholland Books, an imprint of Little, Brown and Company 2025 319 pages

Last night

Salter, James
From a writer whose every book is a literary event, a superbly accomplished work of fiction. "Last Night is a spellbinding collection of stories about passion-by turns fiery and subdued, destructive and redemptive, alluring and devastating. In ten powerful stories, Salter portrays men and women in their most intimate moments. A book dealer faces the truth about his life-as it is and never will be again-when he is visited unexpectedly by his brash former girlfriend. A lonely married woman, after a disturbing encounter with a drunken poet at a dinner party, finds herself irresistibly drawn to his animal surrogate, a huge tawny-eyed dog. A lover of poetry must come to terms with his wife's request to give up what may be his most treasured relationship. And in the title story, already hailed by Frank Conroy as "a masterpiece, clearly and without question," a translator, tormented by an agonizing sense of inevitability, assists in his wife's suicide even as he performs a last betrayal. A haunting symphony of desire, memory, and loss-from a writer whose assured style and emotional insight make him one of our most compelling voices at work today.
Vintage International 2006-03-14 132 pages

The Love Song of Jonny Valentine

Teddy Wayne
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.
Thorndike Press 2013 528 pages

GUILTY AS CHARGED

Scott Turow
From a team of top-notch crime fiction authors comes multiple unique perspectives on the American criminal justice system delivered with crackling courtroom intrigue and whodunit suspense in this collection of gripping stories edited by New York Times bestseller Scott Turow. The evidence is clear: New York Times bestselling author Scott Turow redefined the legal thriller, taking readers into the heart of the criminal justice system and creating crackling, realistic novels of courtroom drama and the suspenseful search for criminals. Now, following in his own traditions, Turow gathers a gallery of top contemporary writers to deliver an anthology of original stories that masterfully pay homage to today’s gritty legal thriller. With stories from John Lutz, Sarah Shankman, Stuart Kaminsky, and many others, Turow has put together a masterful collection that explores the sometimes shadowy, always spellbinding world of crime and punishment, legal style.​
Gallery Books 2017-07-15 320 pages

Wild Turkey

Roger L. Simon
“Moses Wine is a force to reckon with and to read with pleasure.” —Dick Lochte, Los Angeles Times Book Review “Wine is the latest in an unbroken line of popular private eyes–molded by Dashiell Hammett in the ‘20s, psychoanalyzed by Ross Macdonald in the ‘50s and ‘60s and now dragged kicking and screaming into a new decade’s cultural crunch.” —Los Angeles Times Book Review With an introduction by Roger L. Simon Moses Wine solved his first major case in The Big Fix, and with it has come a certain amount of celebrity: articles about him and interviews with him have appeared in Newsweek. Dr. Gunther Thomas shows up at Moses front door with a challenge to clear best-selling author Jock Hecht of the murder of ABC anchorwoman Deborah Frank. Waist-deep in questions that seem to have no answers, Moses must find a way to solve the unsolvable or being portrayed as a jerk in a national magazine. Ever restless, ROGER L. SIMON has spent his life moving between books and movies, gaining distinction in both. In books, he is best known for the seven Moses Wine detective novels, which have won prizes in the U.S. and Great Britain and been published in over a dozen languages. In film, most prominent among his six produced screenplays—including his adaptation of The Big Fix—is Enemies, A Love Story, for which Simon was nominated for an Academy Award.
ibooks 2011-07-01 172 pages