366 results for "Literature"

Weepers - A Novel

Peter Mendelsund
A messianic tale about a group of professional mourners—a darkly funny novel of grief, mystery and redemption from the author of The Delivery . Ed is a weeper. A professional weeper. He's a card-carrying member of an eccentric union hired to cry at funerals, wakes, services and burials. It’s an odd job, but his services are sorely needed these days, as the town, the region, the country as a whole has become more or less numb. No one is able to summon a shred of human emotion whatsoever. Not anymore. (What’d be the point? The world’s already gone to hell.) So there’s always work for Ed and his colleagues. But all those cries can wear a man down, and the tears don’t flow quite like they used to, even for a consummate pro like Ed. Then one morning, a stranger comes to town. A scrawny kid with no belongings, no parents, no name, no past. And at precisely the moment of his arrival, people begin to experience something new. Something strange. An onslaught of unbidden feelings, unfamiliar feelings, too many feelings A surrealist story of mourning and messiahs, deserts and droughts, cowboys and junkies, miracles and mass hysteria, the lure of despair and the solace of friendship. Peter Mendelsund’s Weepers is a novel for this age: our age of anesthesia and anger.
Picador 2026-06-16 320 pages

Matters of Choice (The Cole Trilogy)

Gordon, Noah
A woman physician confronts the moral issues of her time in the third novel in the New York Times–bestselling author’s historical medical trilogy. Roberta Jeanne d’Arc Cole is favored to be named associate chief of medicine at a Boston hospital. She is married to a surgeon. They own a trophy residence on historic Brattle Street in Cambridge and a summer house in the Berkshire Hills. Everything melts away. Her gender and her work at an abortion clinic cost her the hospital appointment. Her marriage fails. Crushed, she goes to the farmhouse in Western Massachusetts, thinking to sell it, and finds an unexpected life. How she continues to fight for every woman’s right to choose, while acknowledging her own ticking clock and maternal yearning, makes this prize-winning third story of the Cole trilogy as relevant as tomorrow.
Open Road Integrated Media, Inc. 2026-02-03 392 pages

Les Rois Maudits Roman Historique

Maurice Druon
Les Rois maudits, celebre fresque historique en sept volumes: 1. Le Roi de fer. 2. La Reine etranglee. 3. Les Poisons de la Couronne. 4. La Loi des males. 5. La Louve de France. 6. Le Lis et le Lion. 7. Quand un roi perd la France, font revivre le xive siecle, entre le proces des templiers et les debuts de la guerre de Cent Ans. Traduits dans le monde entier, Les Rois maudits ont remporte un succes exceptionnel et sont consideres comme un des modeles contemporains du roman historique. Les Poisons de la Couronne ressuscite, presque jour par jour, les conflits, les intrigues, les haines et les crimes du regne de Louis X le Hutin, qui ne dura que dix-huit mois, mais dont les consequences devaient etre capitales pour la monarchie francaise. Lorsqu'il meurt empoisonne, en juin 1316, c'est la premiere fois depuis plus de trois siecles qu'un roi de France decede sans laisser un heritier male.
Plon-Del Duca 1987

At Last A Novel

Marisa Silver
“An astounding achievement.” —Megha Majumdar * “Her best book yet.” —Paul Yoon Set in midcentury America, At Last explores a rich family saga centered on two fierce and competitive matriarchs whose intertwined lives reflect the complexities of family, tradition, and personal ambition. “Whole lives course down the decades, and every minute is conveyed with Silver’s signature combination of toughness and grace,” (Laird Hunt). Helene Simonauer and Evelyn Turner are two formidable women whose paths cross when their children marry. Both women are sharp, cunning, and unwavering in their conflicting beliefs about marriage, responsibility, and family and, most pressingly, their efforts to vie for the love of their shared granddaughter. At Last paints a vivid portrait of the American Midwest, capturing the essence of a time and place where societal norms and personal aspirations often clashed. Marisa Silver’s narrative weaves together the lives of Helene and Evelyn, from their vastly different childhoods through the pivotal events that define them. Both intimate and expansive, and capturing the complexities of ambition and love with humor and insight, At Last is a testament to what happens when an unintended, even unwanted relationship turns out to be a central one that defines a life.
Simon and Schuster 2025-09-02 288 pages

Acts of faith

Segal, Erich
They met as children, innocents from two different worlds. And from that moment their lives were fated to be forever entwined. Timothy : Abandoned at birth, he finds a home--and a dazzling career--within the Catholic Church. But the vows he takes cannot protect him from one soul-igniting passion. Daniel : The scholarly son of a great rabbi, he is destined to follow in his father's footsteps. And destined to break his father's heart. Deborah : She was raised to be docile and dutiful--the perfect rabbi's wife--but love will lead her to rebellion. And into world's the patriarch would never dare imagine. Reaching across more than a quarter of a century, from the tough streets of Brooklyn to ultramodern Brasilia to an Israeli kibbutz, and radiating the splendor of two holy cities, Rome and Jerusalem, here is Erich Segal's most provocative and ambitious novel to date--the unforgettable story of three extraordinary lives...and one forbidden love. From the Paperback edition.
Bantam Books 1992-03-01 529 pages

The Director A Novel

Daniel Kehlmann
A New York Times Notable Book • An NYPL Best Book of 2025 • A Washington Post Notable Book A Late Show with Stephen Colbert Book Club Pick “Nothing short of brilliant.” — The Wall Street Journal From “a surpassingly gifted storyteller” ( The New York Times ), a visionary novel inspired by the life of film director G.W. Pabst, who fled to Hollywood to resist the Nazis only to return to his homeland to create propaganda films for the German Reich. An artist’s life, a pact with the devil, and the dangerous illusions of the silver screen. G.W. Pabst, one of cinema’s greatest directors of the 20th century, was filming in France when the Nazis seized power. To escape the horrors of the new and unrecognizable Germany, he fled to Hollywood. But now, under the blinding California sun, the world-famous director suddenly looks like a nobody. Not even Greta Garbo, the Hollywood actress whom he made famous, can help him. When he receives word that his elderly mother is ill, he finds himself back in his homeland of Austria, which is now called Ostmark. Pabst, his wife, and his young son are suddenly confronted with the barbaric nature of the regime. So, when Joseph Goebbels—the minister of propaganda in Berlin—sees the potential for using the European film icon for his directorial genius and makes big promises to Pabst and his family, Pabst must consider Goebbels’s thinly veiled order. While Pabst still believes that he will be able to resist these advances, that he will not submit to any dictatorship other than art, he has already taken the first steps into a hopeless entanglement. Kehlmann’s latest oeuvre explores the complicated relationships and distinctions between art and power, beauty and barbarism, cog and conspirator.
S&S/Summit Books 2026-05-12 352 pages

The Cabala

Bernhard Pick
Kabbalah is a mystical and esoteric system of Jewish thought and spirituality, which dates back to ancient times and has continued to evolve throughout history. It involves the interpretation of the Hebrew Bible and the quest for understanding the hidden meanings and secrets of the universe. In "The Cabala," Bernhard Pick explores the origins, history, and development of Kabbalah within Judaism. He also examines how Kabbalistic ideas and concepts have influenced Christian mysticism and esotericism over the centuries. The book delves into various aspects of Kabbalah, including its teachings on the nature of God, the Sephirot (emanations or attributes of the divine), the concept of Ein Sof (the infinite and unknowable divine essence), and the use of mystical symbols and diagrams. Bernhard Pick's work on the Cabala is considered significant in the study of Jewish mysticism and the transmission of Kabbalistic ideas beyond Jewish circles into Christian thought.
Zinc Read 2023-07-31 66 pages

The Florentine Dagger

Ben Hecht,Wallace Smith
Unravel a chilling mystery in Ben Hecht's "The Florentine Dagger," a gripping novel for amateur detectives steeped in historical intrigue. Journey into the depths of the human psyche as this classic work of historical fiction explores the complex intersection of crime and insanity. Hecht, a master storyteller, crafts a tale where the line between sanity and madness blurs, challenging readers to question what they believe. A timeless exploration of psychological suspense, "The Florentine Dagger" delves into the dark corners of the mind. This meticulously prepared print edition offers a new opportunity to experience Hecht's masterful prose. Perfect for fans of classic detective stories and those fascinated by the intricacies of psychological thrillers, this novel remains a compelling and thought-provoking read. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
Creative Media Partners, LLC 2025-03-29 134 pages

The uncanny

Klavan, Andrew
When American film director Richard Storm first comes to London, he has his own secret mission. Part vacation, part research, he finds renewed purpose working at a curious magazine of weird phenomena, 'Bizarre'. The owner/editor is herself a curiosity and opens up an extraordinary new world - of strange but true hauntings, hunts and spirit worship. When Richard is introduced to beautiful heiress Sophia Endering, he finds himself helplessly in love with her. But she is as dangerous to herself as she is for those who love her - for she has an almost unstoppable death wish. Strange forces are at work and the uncanny twists of fate which brought Richard to London have something much more apocalyptic in store...
Little, Brown 1998 418 pages

Pulling Up Stakes

David, Peter
Sick of vampire books? Movies? TV shows? Yeah. So are we. Sick of the entire unlife of vampires? Yeah. So is Vince Hammond. Unfortunately, Vince is in it up to his (wait for it) neck. Because Vince is a young vampire hunter who lives with his vampire hunter mother in an entire community of vampire hunters, who in turn are part of a cult of vampire hunters going back all the way to the French Revolution, which many believe to be an uprising of the poor against the rich but was actually a massive purging of vampires from the French nobility (hence the guillotine; way more efficient than shoving stakes into their hearts.) And here’s Vince’s major problem: he’s a vampire. But he dare not “come out of the coffin,” as it were, and reveal his true nature, because his mother will literally kill him. And if she doesn’t manage it, she has lots of friends and neighbors to help make sure that happens. So instead Vince has to keep his head down and hunt his own kind while making sure not to actually kill them since, for the most part, vampires are law-abiding citizens who drink from eagerly volunteering “Wanna V’s” hoping for their own shot at the night life. But when some out-of-town hunters show up with a very personal connection to Vince, his two worlds are going to collide in a way that may wind up forcing Vince to run for the hills…assuming he can get far enough away before Mom hunts him down.
Second Age, Incorporated 2013-04-04 260 pages

Blockade Diary

Ginzburg, Lidiya
The 900-day siege of Leningrad was one the turning points of the Second World War. It slowed down the German advance into Russia and became a national symbol of survival and resistance. From her own experience of the blockade and using facts, conversations, and impressions collected over many years, Lidiya Ginzburg has created a remarkable everyman hero in whom she distils the collective experience of life under siege. Though the author may depict, often painfully, the hunger and harrowing conditions of that period, the reader takes away a different impression—the dignity, vitality, and intellectual resilience of the thinking mind as it records and makes sense of extreme experience.
The Harvill Press 1995 128 pages

Flesh

Szalay, David
'A revelatory novel' Sunday Times 'Brilliance on every page' Samantha Harvey, author of Orbital A propulsive, hypnotic novel about a man who is unravelled by a series of events beyond his grasp. Fifteen-year-old Istvan lives with his mother in a quiet apartment complex in Hungary. New to the town and shy, he is unfamiliar with the social rituals at school and soon becomes isolated, with his neighbour - a married woman close to his mother's age - as his only companion. These encounters shift into a clandestine relationship that Istvan himself can barely understand, and his life soon spirals out of control. As the years pass, he is carried gradually upwards on the twenty-first century's tides of money and power, moving from the army to the company of London's super-rich, with his own competing impulses for love, intimacy, status and wealth winning him unimaginable riches, until they threaten to undo him completely. Spare and penetrating, Flesh is the finest novel yet by a master of realism, asking profound questions about what drives a life- what makes it worth living, and what breaks it. Chosen as a 'Best Book of 2025' by the Guardian , Observer , Financial Times , Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail ' Flesh is a wonderful novel - so brilliant and wise on chance, love, sex, money' David Nicholls, author of One Day 'It's been a long time since I've been swallowed whole by a novel the way I was by this one ... So much searing insight into the way we live now' Observer 'Compelling and elegant, merciless and poignant. David Szalay is an extraordinary writer ' Tessa Hadley
Jonathan Cape 2025-03-06 349 pages

Murder Sees the Light

Howard Engel
Canadian P.I. Benny Cooperman (Murder On Location, etc.) takes to the woods in this one - Algonquin National Park, where he's staying at primitive Petawawa Lodge and keeping an eye on super-successful evangelist Norbert Patten, head of the Ultimate Church. Patten's hiding out as he waits for a Supreme Court verdict on the validity of his church, hoping to dodge some bitter enemies at the same time. His return to the locale of his youth seems to trigger some macabre happenings. When the body of stoic Indian guide Aeneas DuFond is discovered in a culvert, Benny takes a closer look at some of the lodge's visitors - among others, we have commanding Maggie McCord and her nasty, no-good son George; Aeneas' schoolteacher brother Hector; illicit lovebirds Des and Delia and gorgeous, mysterious Aline Barbour.
Penguin Books Ltd 1987-01-29 256 pages

The Puppet Master

Robert Nathan
It's early twentieth century New York. Elderly puppeteer Papa Jonas lives in a small workshop with a cast of magical puppets he and assistant Christopher Lane have created out of cloth and wood. Papa watches as Christopher and pretty single mother and upstairs neighbor Mary Holly fall in love. At the same time, her young daughter Amy May 'marries' off her rag doll Annabelle Lee to 'clown-philosopher' puppet Mister Aristotle. As Christopher and Mary contemplate their future together, jealousy and duplicity doom the relationship of the puppet and rag doll. Full of insight and introspection both through the 'eyes' of the puppets and their creators, this novel explores the depths of human attachment, pain, and love in a wonderful story of love, romance, and philosophy.New York Times Review of "The Puppet Master""The rarity of the comic spirit in our fiction should make us prize its infrequent expression, and we should welcome the novel that neither flatters nor indicts us but invites us to observe ourselves with a little wholesome amusement. Such a book is 'The Puppet Master, ' in which imagination and insight, sympathy and humor have collaborated to produce a story with the accent of fantasy and the warm humanity of comedy."Lloyd MorrisNew York Times
Amazon Digital Services LLC - KDP Print US 2021-04-02 200 pages