"The New York Times bestselling author of Falling presents a warm, wise, and wonderfully vivid novel about a mother who asks her three estranged daughters to come home to help her end her life. Ronni Sunshine left London for Hollywood to become a beautiful, charismatic star of the silver screen. But at home, she was a narcissistic, disinterested mother who alienated her three daughters. As soon as possible, tomboy Nell fled her mother's overbearing presence to work on a farm and find her own way in the world as a single mother. The target of her mother's criticism, Meredith never felt good enough, thin enough, pretty enough. Her life took her to London--and into the arms of a man whom she may not even love. And Lizzy, the youngest, more like Ronni than any of them, seemed to have it easy, using her drive and ambition to build a culinary career to rival her mother's fame, while her marriage crumbled around her. But now the Sunshine sisters are together again, called home by Ronni, who has learned that she has a serious disease and needs her daughters to fulfill her final wishes. And though Nell, Meredith, and Lizzy have never been close, their mother's illness draws them together to confront the old jealousies and secret fears that have threatened to tear these sisters apart. As they face the loss of their mother, they will discover if blood might be thicker than water after all.."--

Presenting the complete texts of eight of the world’s greatest plays, this important volume illuminates the changing concept of tragedy from Sophocles to O’Neill. Some of the world’s greatest dramas unfold on these pages. In the powerful and famous plays of Sophocles, Aeschylus, and Euripedes, Oedipus makes his disastrous marriage, Prometheus struggles against Zeus to break his painful chains, and the Love Goddess, Aphrodite, takes her revenge on the Theban prince who slighted her. Shakespeare’s King Lear suffers at the hands of his two evil daughters. The great Scandinavian dramatists Ibsen and Strindberg fearlessly present stories of infidelity and social disease, while Desire under the Elms, Eugene O’Neill’s savage picture of primitive desires in modern New England, rounds out this excellent anthology. Including important essays by noteworthy critics and philosophers, this book is an ideal companion to the editors’ Eight Great Comedies. Featured Plays: Prometheus Unbound (Aeschylus) Oedipus the King (Sophocles) Hippolytus (Euripedes) King Lear (William Shakespeare) Ghosts (Henrik Ibsen) Miss Julie (August Strindberg) On Baile’s Strand (William Butler Yeats) Desire under the Elms (Eugene O’Neill) Also includes essays by Aristotle, Hume, Emerson, Tillyard, Richards, and Krutch.

The startling, witty, highly anticipated second novel from the critically acclaimed author of Atmospheric Disturbances . The story begins in 1618, in the German duchy of Württemberg. Plague is spreading. The Thirty Years' War has begun, and fear and suspicion are in the air throughout the Holy Roman Empire. In the small town of Leonberg, Katharina Kepler is accused of being a witch. Katharina is an illiterate widow, known by her neighbors for her herbal remedies and the success of her children, including her eldest, Johannes, who is the Imperial Mathematician and renowned author of the laws of planetary motion. It's enough to make anyone jealous, and Katharina has done herself no favors by being out and about and in everyone's business. So when the deranged and insipid Ursula Reinbold (or as Katharina calls her, the Werewolf) accuses Katharina of offering her a bitter, witchy drink that has made her ill, Katharina is in trouble. Her scientist son must turn his attention from the music of the spheres to the job of defending his mother. Facing the threat of financial ruin, torture, and even execution, Katharina tells her side of the story to her friend and next-door neighbor Simon, a reclusive widower imperiled by his own secrets. Drawing on real historical documents but infused with the intensity of imagination, sly humor, and intellectual fire for which Rivka Galchen is known, Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch will both provoke and entertain. The story of how a community becomes implicated in collective aggression and hysterical fear is a tale for our time. Galchen's bold new novel touchingly illuminates a society and a family undone by superstition, the state, and the mortal convulsions of history.

A piercing, magical story about?a life-altering friendship Toward the end of his life, H looks back on the relationship that has shaped and obsessed him for nearly a century. It began many years earlier at St. Oswald's, a dismal boarding school on the coast of England, where the young H came face- to-face with an almost unbearably beautiful boy living by himself at the edge of the sea. At first, the mysterious Finn appears to have no past-his home is an ancient fisherman's hut with a woodstove, a case of books, striped blankets, and a cat. H insinuates his way into Finn's life, stalking him with perfect patience until an unlikely friendship is kindled; a confused idyll of ?devotion and longing set against a background of blazing wood fires and fishing expeditions. Their friendship deepens, offering H both the freedom and the human connection that has always eluded him. But in a world of conformity, can one eccentric idyll be ?allowed to survive?

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.

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Devil Wears Prada comes an irresistible novel about what happens when a girl on the fringe enters the realm of New York’s chic, party-hopping elite. On paper, Bette Robinson’s life is good. At twenty-six, she’s got a great deal on an apartment in Manhattan, and she’s on target to become an associate at the prestigious investment bank where she works with her best friend. Her eighty-hour workweeks might keep her from socializing or dating outside her office walls—but she’s paying her dues on the well-trod path to wealth and happiness. So when Bette quits her job like the impulsive girl she’s never been, she not only shocks her friends and family—she has no idea what to do next. For months, Bette gets out and about by walking her four-pound dog around her decidedly unglamorous Murray Hill neighborhood. Then she meets Kelly, head of Manhattan’s hottest PR and events planning firm, and suddenly Bette has a brand-new job where the primary requirement is to see and be seen. The work at Kelly & Company takes Bette inside the VIP rooms of the city’s most exclusive nightclubs, to parties crowded with celebrities and socialites. Bette learns not to blink at the famous faces, the black Amex cards, the magnums of Cristal, or the ruthless paparazzi. Soon she’s dating an infamous playboy who’s great for her career but bad for her sanity—and scaring off the one decent guy she meets. Still, as her coworkers repeatedly point out, how can you complain about a job that pays you to party? Bette has to agree—until she begins appearing in a vicious new gossip column. That's when Bette’s life on paper takes on a whole new meaning—and she learns the line between her personal and professional lives is...invisible.

In 1907 novelist James Joyce was engaged as Svevo's English tutor in Trieste, and in the process they developed a friendship. When Joyce read Svevo's novel La coscienza di Zeno (Confessions of Zeno), he was so impressed with it that he encouraged the writer to publish it, and later helped to promote it. While Joyce became enthralled with the latest novelistic techniques -particularly the stream of consciousness and indirect free style- to get inside the mind of his characters, Svevo accomplished the same thing without the new tools. Zeno's consciousness is not the flowing of a stream, but the cascading, torrential avalanche of details that is the essence of humanness in all aspects: from low double entry bookkeeping, business, and economics, to manipulations of the Stock Market, to moral dilemmas, and raw passions. Italo Svevo's Confessions of Zeno belongs to the comic tradition of Don Quixote and Tristram Shandy, though not in the realist manner, but rather in a psychological vein. After reading a few pages the reader will have no doubt that he is confronting a paradoxical juxtaposition between things of the mind and things themselves. Zeno -the narrator and eponymous hero- on the surface is a hypochondriac, neurotic, quirky, solipsistic, self-examining and self-serving bourgeois; deep down, however, he is love and goodness incarnate, not by design but by the whims of life. Although Svevo wrote many other works, his opus magnum will remain his Confessions of Zeno. While Proust and others wrote lengthy psychological novels, by their sheer length and density, they become soporific. Not so with Zeno, which is intriguing, suspenseful, engaging-never boring, a magnificent tour de force.

From the writer of the award-winning Game of Thrones series for HBO based on the books of George R. R. Martin. Over the course of eight tales, often with an appealing touch of the surreal, we are introduced to a record comany exec searching for a rock star, an inexperienced Russian soldier trapped between his murderous colleagues and a clever old woman, a faded football star recalling his lost chance at love, an acress who has a shot at a role that will free her from a lifetime of waitressing, a young man who kidnap's his ex-girlfriend's father's ashes, and other young people on the cusp of discovery, jubilation or loss. As he evokes the various states of agony and pleasure - humiliation, rebellion, cameraderie, and desire - Benioff displays a profound understanding of how single moments lead to transformation, and how sadness can be illuminated by a humorous flip side.

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]

DR. ALFRED ADLER'S work in psychology, while it is scientific and general in method, is essentially the study of the separate personalities we are, and is therefore called Individual Psychology. Concrete, particular, unique human beings are the subjects of this psychology, and it can only be truly learned from the men, women and children we meet.The supreme importance of this contribution to modern psychology is due to the manner in which it reveals how all the activities of the soul are drawn together into the service of the individual, how all his faculties and strivings are related to one end. We are enabled by this to enter into the ideals, the difficulties, the efforts and discouragements of our fellow-men, in such a way that we may obtain a whole and living picture of each as a personality. In this coordinating idea, something like finality is achieved, though we must understand it as finality of foundation. There has never before been a method so rigorous and yet adaptable for following the fluctuations of that most fluid, variable and elusive of all realities, the individual human soul.

A New York Times Notable Book of 2013 A traumatic event unfolds when a girl with hair the color of golden wheat appears in an apple orchard; a woman plays out a fantasy with her husband and finds she cannot go back to her old sex life; an ugly woman marries an ogre and struggles to decide if she should stay with him after he mistakenly eats their children; and two sisters travel deep into Malaysia, where one learns the art of mending tigers who have been ripped to shreds. In each of The Color Master 's fifteen remarkable stories, Aimee Bender holds a funhouse mirror up to reality, proving, once again, that she is one of the most intelligent and imaginative writers of our time.

"The long-awaited final volume in the acclaimed Penguin translation of Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time-one of the world's most beloved works of literature. "The greatest literary work of the twentieth century."-The New York Times. Ian Patterson's acclaimed new translation of Finding Time Again introduces a new generation of American readers to the literary riches of Marcel Proust. The seventh and final 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 readers of English have previously been able to enjoy. In Finding Time Again, Marcel discovers his world destroyed by war and those he knew transformed by the march of time. An exquisite picture of France in the throes of the First World War, and containing, in the "Bal des têtes" sequence, one of Proust's most devastating set-pieces, Finding Time Again triumphantly describes the paradox of facing mortality yet overcoming it through the act of writing. As Marcel rediscovers his vocation, he realizes that he can live on by writing down the story of his own memories and of his quest to recapture the past"--

Hold on tight for a wild, rollicking, action-adventure novella that captures all of the fun, excitement and pure escapist pleasure of the Dirty Harry , Lethal Weapon and the Die Hard movies...with the humor, sharp dialogue and inventiveness that you've come to expect from Lee Goldberg, #1 New York Times bestselling author of True Fiction . Los Angeles cop John "Tidal Wave" McGrave is an unstoppable force of nature who always gets his man...even if it means laying waste to everything around him, including his own career...which is exactly what happens in his pursuit of Sebastian Richter, the ruthless leader of an international gang of violent thieves. When Richter flees to Berlin, McGrave chases after him...even though the cop doesn't know the language, the laws, or the culture. But McGrave doesn't care...he speaks the universal language of knee in the groin and fist in the face...and he won't let anything get in his way. "McGrave" is guaranteed to leave you breathless...and with a big smile on your face. CRITICAL ACCLAIM FOR #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR LEE GOLDBERG "Can books be better than TV? You bet they can -- when Lee Goldberg's writing them. Get aboard now for a thrill ride," Lee Child "Approaching the level of Lawrence Block is no mean feat, but Goldberg succeeds..." Publishers Weekly "You'd be hard-pressed to find another recent work that provides so many hip and humorous moments," Bookgasm "A wonderfully fresh voice in the mystery genre, Goldberg will delight fans of Janet Evanovich and Robert Crais," - Rick Riordan, author of Percy Jackson & the Olympians "Goldberg has a knack for combining just the right amount of humor and realism [...]he should be on everyone's must read list." Crimespree Magazine "Lee Goldberg is known for his cleverness and sense of humor. He shows how a masterful plotter can take a character in a comic situation and lead him into unexpected danger in an eye-blink," - Thomas Perry, New York Times bestselling author "You'll finish this book breathless!" Janet Evanovich "Leaves you guessing right up until the heart-stopping ending," Lisa Gardner "Lee Goldberg can plot and write with the best of them," Mystery Scene Magazine "Entertaining and ruefully funny," Honolulu Star Bulletin CRITICAL ACCLAIM FOR McGRAVE : "Sitting down to read McGrave is like getting hit in the face with a double-fistload of two-by-four. For those of you who thrill to the throaty roar of a V-8 engine and long for the days when policework came from Bruce Willis University, Lee Goldberg has got a read for you. Strap in and hold tight," Mel Odom, author of the Left Behind Apocalypse series "Lee Goldberg has answered one of my prayers. A new lawman-in-new-territory series. McGrave is everything I've been waiting for. This a first-rate, one-night read. For me it's a five-star implementation of a five-star idea," Mugshots Blog "Goldberg pulls off a very neat trick, producing a yarn that's part serious, part satire, and all action. It seems like I had a grin on my face the whole time I was reading it. I loved it," James Reasoner, author of Texas Wind "This book is the literary equivalent of buffalo wings and boilermakers. " Post Modern Pulps "It's terrific. Non-stop action and a lot of laughs. Reading it was like watching a great action movie." Bill Crider, author of Outrage at Blanco .

Isaac Bashevis Singer is known for his mastery of storytelling - but it was not until 1966, at the age of sixty-two, that he published his first children's book, Zlateh the Goat, a Newbery Honor Book and instant classic. Singer went on to write many stories for children, most of which are included in this volume, along with a brief introduction and a special epilogue, "Are Children the Ultimate Literary Critics?" The collection presents exuberant and timeless tales for children rich in fantasy and deeply rooted in the lost cultural tradition of his native Poland. A number of the stories appear in book form for the first time - and all have been translated from the Yiddish with the author's personal supervision.

Alfred Kazin burst onto the American literary scene in 1942, when his first book, "On Native Grounds," announced the arrival of an important new literary critic. "A Walker in the City," his second, signaled the other direction his career would follow: author of several intense, intimate, and lyrical memoirs. Years later he would admit how he struggled writing it. He thought he wanted to concentrate on New York itself, describing a series of walks around the city. But what emerged was the story of his own boyhood encounters with it, starting from Brownsville, the Brooklyn Jewish neighborhood of his birth, then stretching out to alluring, mysterious Manhattan and from there to the world. Each walk is simultaneously a journey out and a journey in: outward, from the neighborhood to the land beyond, the great, electric, canyoned streets of the city; inward, into his own soul, as it grows and falls in love with books and language and literature, with music and metaphysics and politics, with the city and the country and the world and rapturously tries to take them all in.

The Red Notebook stories, pulled from Auster's own life or from the lives of those close to him, are explorations of unexpected coincidences. A wrong number becomes the genesis for a famous novel; a hero appears at an inopportune moment; a lightning storm harries a group of campers; a daughter plunges from a terrifying height only to land improbably safely; a Paul Auster imposter materializes. Like a magic show, The Red Notebook demonstrates that "there is much to life that is special and serendipitous -- if only we allow ourselves to perceive it this way" (The Washington Post).

Sinuously constructed in four interlocking parts, Paul Auster's fifteenth novel opens in New York City in the spring of 1967, when twenty-year-old Adam Walker, an aspiring poet and student at Columbia University, meets the enigmatic Frenchman Rudolf Born and his silent and seductive girfriend, Margot. Before long, Walker finds himself caught in a perverse triangle that leads to a sudden, shocking act of violence that will alter the course of his life. Three different narrators tell the story of Invisible , a novel that travels in time from 1967 to 2007 and moves from Morningside Heights to the Left Bank of Paris to a remote island in the Caribbean. It is a book of youthful rage, unbridled sexual hunger, and a relentless quest for justice. With uncompromising insight, Auster takes us into the shadowy borderland between truth and memory, between authorship and identity, to produce a work of unforgettable power that confirms his reputation as "one of America's most spectacularly inventive writers."

A thrilling literary fiction whodunit for fans of Delia Owens and Jacqueline Winspear World War II is raging overseas, but life remains painfully quiet on the rugged New England fishing island of Fourth Cliff. With most of its able-bodied male inhabitants away in the service, the island is now home only to aged fishermen, concerned women and children, and second-rate soldiers guarding a low-priority military emplacement and camp for Italian POWs. With her husband Archie, Fourth Cliff's beloved police captain, off fighting in the Marines, Mary Beth Swann steps into his role. Though a cop herself, she has to fight for the respect of Fourth Cliff's hardscrabble residents. And that's before a murdered POW surfaces in a fisherman's net, followed by more bodies. Determined to find the killer, Swann must rely only on the help of a simple-minded deputy, a disgraced doctor, and a mob-connected mainlander to prove her worth to Fourth Cliff--and to herself. In the tradition of Where the Crawdads Sing and the BBC's Foyle's War, Michael Oren's novel seizes the reader and doesn't let go until the very last page.

"In this brilliant and hilarious jailbreak of a novel, Charyn channels the genius poet and her great leaps of the imagination." —Donna Seaman, Booklist (starred review) Jerome Charyn, "one of the most important writers in American literature" (Michael Chabon), continues his exploration of American history through fiction with The Secret Life of Emily Dickinson , hailed by prize-winning literary historian Brenda Wineapple as a "breathtaking high-wire act of ventriloquism." Channeling the devilish rhythms and ghosts of a seemingly buried literary past, Charyn removes the mysterious veils that have long enshrouded Dickinson, revealing her passions, inner turmoil, and powerful sexuality. The novel, daringly written in first person, begins in the snow. It's 1848, and Emily is a student at Mount Holyoke, with its mournful headmistress and strict, strict rules. Inspired by her letters and poetry, Charyn goes on to capture the occasionally comic, always fevered, ultimately tragic story of her life-from defiant Holyoke seminarian to dying recluse.