Read Visible City . Tova Mirvis s graceful yet vigorous New York novel is about the half-inadvertent window-peeping that city life enables, and where it can lead. New York Magazine After chaotic days of wrangling and soothing her young children, Nina spends her evenings spying on the quiet, contented older couple across the street. But one night, through her same window, she spies a young couple in the throes of passion. Who are these people, and what happened to her symbol of domestic happiness? Soon, Nina crosses paths with both couples on the streets of her Upper West Side neighborhood and, as anonymity gives way to different forms of intimacy, all begin to confront their own desires and disappointments. Shrewdly and artfully, Mirvis explores the boundaries between our own lives and the lives of others. From its lavish ghost subway stations to its hidden stained-glass windows, Visible City conjures a New York City teeming with buried treasures. An utterly perfect, deeply moving evocation of contemporary Manhattan [that] reminded me of Paula Fox and Laurie Colwin, and also those master chroniclers of the privileged classes, Wharton and Fitzgerald . . . Brilliant. Joanna Smith Rakoff, Salon.com Mirvis s meticulously choreographed novel surprises and moves us. New York Times Book Review TOVA MIRVIS is the author of The Outside World and The Ladies Auxiliary , a national bestseller. Her essays have appeared in various anthologies and newspapers, and her fiction has been broadcast on NPR. She is a recipient of a Massachusetts Cultural Council Fiction Fellowship and lives in Newton, Massachusetts, with her three children. Author photograph (c) Nina Subin"

Dinah Sachs and Asa Thayer have had a love affair, conducted in afternoons stolen from the office of the magazine where they work. But now that the affair is over, Dinah, in an act of lingering passion, invents a narrative of Asa's youth, imagining the events that shaped the "happy, handsome man" who, in her words, "was born to stomp on my heart." Witty and sexy, funny and immediate, Asa, As I Knew Him is a a seductive dialogue between love and memory, obsession and illusion.

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.

'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?

“In these 35 stories, one struggles to find a sentence that is anything less than jewel–box perfect.” — The New York Times Book Review Gina Berriault is known for the complexity and compassion with which she weaves her characters, and her stories are such models of economy that they seem almost telepathic. In this reissue of her collected stories—twenty years after its first publication—with a new introduction by renowned author and devoted Berriault advocate Peter Orner—we see the deft hand of this well–loved master of the short story at its best. Berriault employs her vital sensibility—sometimes subtly ironic and sometimes achingly raw—to touch on the inevitability of suffering and the nature of individuality, daring to see into the essence of our predicaments. What moves us? What dictates our behavior? What alters us? Her writing is spare, evanescent, pulsing with life and shimmering with life's strange hope. Her stories illustrate the depth of her emotional understanding. “Half the women in the world are right now in bed, theirs or somebody else's, whether it's night or day, whether they want to be or not...” With Women in Their Beds, Berriault's prose—moving, honest, and wise—achieves a mastery of the short story form that was in evidence every step of her long career. She was a completely modern writer, blessed with an exquisite sense of the potency of words and the ability to create moments of empathy that are both disturbing and mysteriously amusing.

Four-time Edgar Award-winning author Lawrence Block's definitive essay collection on the art of writing fiction For ten years, crime novelist Lawrence Block funneled his wealth of writing expertise into a monthly column for Writer's Digest. Collected here for the first time are those pieces illuminating the tricks of the authorial trade, from creating vibrant characters and generating seamless plots, to conquering writer's block and experimenting with self-publishing. Filled with wit and insight, The Liar's Bible is a must-read for experts, amateurs, and anyone interested in learning to craft great fiction from one of the field's modern masters. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Lawrence Block, including rare photos and never-before-seen documents from the author's personal collection.

England, 1932: Grace Hamblin is growing up in a rural idyll. The beekeeper's daughter, she knows her place and her future -- that is until her father dies and leaves her alone. Alone, that is, except for one man who she just can't shake from her thoughts ... Massachusetts, 1973: Grace's daughter Trixie Valentine is in love with an unsuitable boy. He's wild and romantic, and in a band that might be going somewhere. But when tragedy strikes and he has to go home to England, he promises to come back to Trixie one day, if only she will wait for him. Both mother and daughter are searching for love and happiness, unaware of the secrets that bind them. To find what they are longing for they must confront the secrets of the past, and unravel the lies told long ago.

The work of a woman who has invested her life in her art, and who will, I think be remembered as one of the significant writers of her generation.' Saul BellowBlue in Chicago collects together the sharp, bittersweet stories of Bette Howland and restores to our bookshelves an extraordinarily gifted writer, who was recognized as a major talent before all but disappearing from public view for decades, until nearly the end of her life. Bette Howland was an outsider: an intellectual from a working-class neighborhood in Chicago; a divorcée and single mother, to the disapproval of her family; an artist chipped away at by poverty and perfection. Each of these sides of her life plays a shaping role in her work. Mining her most precarious struggles for her art in each of these stories, she chronicles the fears and hopes of her generation.Blue in Chicago, and other stories introduces UK readers to a wry, brilliant observer and a writer of great empathy and sly, joyous humor. Published in the US under the title Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage.'If there's a Howland bandwagon (and there should be), hold me a seat, or I'll stand. No problem, I'll stand.' Paris Review

In "Men I'm Not Married To," Dorothy Parker offers a sharp, witty collection of essays and character sketches that explore the complexities of love, desire, and disillusionment through her incisive lens. Known for her acerbic humor and keen observations of the societal norms of her time, Parker employs a conversational yet poignant literary style, weaving personal anecdotes with broader social critiques. This work emerges from the early 20th century, a pivotal era in American literature marked by a burgeoning feminism and shifting gender dynamics, which Parker critiques with a blend of irony and authenticity. Dorothy Parker, a prominent member of the Algonquin Round Table, was known for her biting wit and advocacy for women's rights, often reflecting her personal experiences with romance and disappointment. Her own tumultuous relationships and her struggles within the patriarchal society profoundly influenced her writing. Parker's work not only illuminates her individual concerns but also resonates with the broader existential questions of her generation, establishing her as a significant voice in American literature. "Men I'm Not Married To" is an essential read for those who appreciate humor laced with wisdom. Parker's insightful commentary on relationships remains relevant, inviting readers to reflect on the intricacies of human connections, making this collection a timeless exploration of love's transient nature.

Selected as one of Oprah.com's 20 Tantalizing Beach Reads Selected as a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice Isabel Merton is a renowned concert pianist, whose performances are marked by a rare intensity of feeling. At the height of her career, she feels increasingly torn between the compelling musical realm she deeply inhabits, and her fragmented itinerant artist's life, with its frequent flights, anonymous hotels, and brief, arbitrary encounters. Away from her New York home on a European tour, Isabel meets a political exile from a war-torn country, a man driven by a rankling sense of injustice and a powerful desire to vindicate his cause and avenge his people. As their paths cross in several cities, they are drawn to each other both by their differences and their seemingly parallel passions-until a menacing incident throws her into a creative crisis, and forces her to reevaluate her lover's actions, and her own motives. In this story of contemporary love and conflict, Hoffman illuminates the currents and undercurrents of our time, as she explores the luminous and dark faces of romanticism, and those perennial human yearnings, frustrations, and moral choices that can lead to destructiveness, or the richest art.

This book is the first to systematically examine the representation of women by mainstream Hebrew authors from the Palmah Generation to the New Wave. Fuchs’ unique analytical method exposes the male-centered bias which often inspires the works of such prominent and widely translated authors as S. Yizhar, Moshe Shamir, A. B. Yehoshua and Amos Oz. She exposes both the continuities and the transformations in the literary representations of women and explains them in innovative ways, grounded in aesthetic, social, political, and cultural conditions and ideologies. The bold and unexpected discoveries offered by this book illuminate the complex ways in which Israel’s political predicaments, for example, affect the representation of women, as well as the various ways in which Israeli literature uses female images to express the anxiety and frustration arising from these predicaments. This pioneering study will be invaluable to feminist literary critics, scholars, and teachers and students of modern Hebrew literature.

Lucy Derrick is a young woman of good breeding and poor finances. After the death of her beloved father, she is forced to maintain a shabby dignity as the unwanted boarder of her tyrannical uncle, fending off marriage to a local mill owner. But just as she is on the cusp of accepting a life of misery, events take a stunning turn when a handsome stranger--the poet and notorious rake Lord Byron--arrives at her house, stricken by what seems to be a curse, and with a cryptic message for Lucy. Suddenly her unfortunate circumstances are transformed in ways at once astonishing and seemingly impossible. With the world undergoing an industrial transformation, and with England on the cusp of revolution, Lucy is drawn into a dangerous conspiracy in which her life, and her country's future, are in the balance. Inexplicably finding herself at the center of cataclysmic events, Lucy is awakened to a world once unknown to her: where magic and mortals collide, and the forces of ancient nature and modern progress are at war for the soul of England . . . and the world. The key to victory may be connected to a cryptic volume whose powers of enchantment are unbounded. Now, challenged by ruthless enemies with ancient powers at their command, Lucy must harness newfound mystical skills to prevent catastrophe and preserve humanity's future. And enthralled by two exceptional men with designs on her heart, she must master her own desires to claim the destiny she deserves. " The Twelfth Enchantment" is the most captivating work to date of a master literary conjurer. "From the Hardcover edition."

Grace Sorentino has never known the good life: from childhood hardships, to a marriage that began with lofty dreams and ended with all hopes shattered. Dealt bad hand after bad hand. Grace and Jackie, her rebellious teenage daughter, are now stuck in Florida, on the verge of poverty. Grace is underpaid and under appreciated cosmetician at Saks Fifth Avenue, and Jackie-when she is not spending her time with questionable boys-balances school and two jobs. Just when Grace things couldn't get any worse, Grace is fired after accidentally insulting a snobby customer. However, it is a blessing in disguise. As she walks out the door, her boss offers her an invaluable piece of advice: don't look for a new job, but a vulnerable old rich widower who has just lost his wife; comfort him, and once his guard is down, seduce him. The keys to success and fortune are not a name tag and uniform, but a new last name and a ring on your finger. Marriage should be the number-one priority. At first Grace is appalled by the idea, but as rent, car payments, and credit card bills pile up, her despair turns to desperation. She begins looking through the obituaries for her last chance at a good life-after all, isn't that something everyone deserves?

Tolstoy famously wrote, "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." To Tracy Farber, thirty-three, happily single, headed for tenure at a major university, and content to build a life around friends and work, this celebrated maxim is questionable at best. Because if Tolstoy is to be taken at his word, only unhappiness is interesting; happiness must be as placid and unmemorable as a daisy in a field of a thousand daisies. Having decided to reject the petty indignities of dating, Tracy focuses instead on her secret project: to determine whether happiness can be interesting, in literature and in life, or whether it can be--must be--a plant with thorns and gnarled roots. It's an unfashionable proposition, and a potential threat to her job security. But Tracy is her own best example of a happy and interesting life. Little does she know, however, that her best proof will come when she falls for George, who will challenge all of her old assumptions, as love proves to be even more complicated than she had imagined. Can this young feminist scholar, who posits that "a woman's independence is a hothouse flower--improbable, rare, requiring vigilance," find happiness in a way that fulfills both her head and her heart? Love may be the ultimate cliché, but in Rachel Kadish's hands, it is also a morally serious question, deserving of our sober attention as well as our delighted laughter.

Elisa - orphaned as a child, raised by a 'fallen woman', fed by fairy tales - has lived in an outlandish imaginary world for years. When her guardian dies, she feels compelled to confront her family's tortured and dramatic past, weaving the tale of her mother and grandmother through a history of intrigue, treachery, deception and desire. But as her saga of three generations of Sicilian women proceeds, it becomes something else entirely, taking in a whole legacy of oppression and injustice. By turns flamboyant and intense, raging and funny, Lies and Sorcery is a celebration of the female imagination, and the power of storytelling itself. First published in 1948, Elsa Morante's debut novel won the Viareggio Prize and earned her the lasting admiration of generations of writers from Italo Calvino and Natalia Ginzburg to Elena Ferrante. Translated by Jenny McPhee

From a small, bogside cabin in rural New England, 38-year-old Aimee Slater unravels the story of her life, attempting to make sense of the tangled thread that leads from her mother's house-a short, unbridgeable distance away-to the world she now inhabits. It is soon after the Civil War; Aimee lives alone, but is graced with visits from two friends, a crippled man and a troubled eleven-year-old girl. She is perpetually caught between the sensual world she so desires and the divine retribution passed down to her by her mother's scorn. How Aimee ultimately creates a life for herself and bridges that distance makes for a moving story of love and loss. Told in a voice of spare New England lyricism, Unravelling is a remarkably haunting account of the power of redemption.

In this book, Barney explores her family tree, chronicles her friendships and associations through reprinted correspondence and recreated conversations, and evokes the golden age of her salon in gallery of literary portraits.

Maud Gonthier yearns for an escape from the cocoon of the bourgeois modesty. The splendid, caddish David Tyler appears to offer one. In this stylish, deeply knowing novel by the Booker Prize winning author of Hotel du Lac, Maud's seduction creates a chemistry of longing, sensuality, and betrayal--with a surprising climax.

From the award-winning author of Minor Characters comes a haunting novel about the persistence of love and the sustaining and destabilizing power of memories In the vibrant downtown Manhattan art world of the 1960s, where men and women collide in "lucky and unlucky convergences," a series of love affairs has left Joanna Gold, a young photographer, feeling numbed. Then, at yet another party, a painter named Tom Murphy walks up to her. "Why do you hang back?" he asks. Rather than another brief collision, their relationship is the profound and ecstatic love each had longed to find. But it's undermined by Tom's harrowing past--his fatherless childhood, his wartime experiences, and most of all, the loss of the two children he left behind in Florida, along with the powerful red, white, and black paintings he will never set eyes on again. Tom, both tender and volatile, draws Joanna into the unwinnable struggle against the forces that drive him toward death. Once again, Joyce Johnson brings to life a mythic bohemian world where art is everything and life is as full of intensity and risk as the bold sweep of a painter's brush across a canvas. A New York Times Notable Book Excerpted in The New Yorker and Harper's Magazine