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Seven stories spanning the globe and a century, revealing narratives of individual characters and their experience in a rich multicultural context.
In his second collection, including the iconic and much-referenced title story featured in the Academy Award-winning film Birdman, Carver establishes his reputation as one of the most celebrated short-story writers in American literature—a haunting meditation on love, loss, and companionship, and finding one’s way through the dark.
Fourteen remarkable stories that combine strong Western settings with a subtle and distinct female voice. This critically celebrated debut collection marks the exciting beginning of prize-winner Meloy’s promising career. Lean and controlled in their narration, abundant and moving in their effects, Maile Meloy’s stories introduce a striking talent. Most are set in the modern American West, made vivid and unexpected in Meloy’s unsentimental vision; others take us to Paris, wartime London, and Greece, with the same remarkable skill and intuition. In “Four Lean Hounds, ca. 1976,” two couples face a complicated grief when one of the four dies. In “Ranch Girl,” the college-bound daughter of a ranch foreman must choose which adult world she wants to occupy. In “A Stakes Horse,” a woman confronts risk and loss at the racetrack and at home. And in “Aqua Boulevard”—winner of the 2001 Aga Khan Prize for Fiction—an elderly Parisian confronts his mortality. Meloy’s command of her characters’ voices is breathtaking; their fears and desires are deftly illuminated. Smart, surprising, and evocative, Meloy’s brilliantly observed stories fully engage the mind and heart.
"More engaging than any new fiction in years." —Chuck Palahniuk An unforgettable work of fiction that peers into the soul of a tough Midwestern American town to reveal the sad, stunted but resilient lives of its residents. Knockemstiff is a genuine entry into the literature of place. Spanning a period from the mid-sixties to the late nineties, the linked stories that comprise Knockemstiff feature a cast of recurring characters who are irresistibly, undeniably real. A father pumps his son full of steroids so he can vicariously relive his days as a perpetual runner-up body builder. A psychotic rural recluse comes upon two siblings committing incest and feels compelled to take action. Donald Ray Pollock presents his characters and the sordid goings-on with a stern intelligence, a bracing absence of value judgments, and a refreshingly dark sense of bottom-dog humor.
Some people work to pay the bills or send the kids to school or afford playtime. Ex-Army medic physician-assistant Glenn Archer works, as much as she possibly can, to atone for all the lost lives on her conscience. No matter how many patients she helps save at the Rivers Community Hospital, it will never be enough, but it helps her look at herself in the mirror in the morning. Mariana Mateo needs to make a new life, one without the daily reminders of all she’s lost and far away from the suffocating sympathies of her well-meaning family, and moving to a place as different as possible from the bustling LA she grew up in seems like a good idea. A cousin she hasn’t seen in twenty years is the only person who knows her in the tiny upstate New York farming community, and that’s just the way she wants it. When working side by side with Glenn Archer in the ER makes Mari remember what desire feels like, Mari determines to ignore the feelings, which isn’t all that difficult since Glenn is as unapproachable as the beautiful but remote mountains. A Rivers Community Novel
A new collection of stories by one of America’s most beloved and admired short-story writers, her first in fifteen years, since Birds of America (“Fluid, cracked, mordant, colloquial . . . Will stand by itself as one of our funniest, most telling anatomies of human love and vulnerability.” —The New York Times Book Review, cover). These eight masterly stories reveal Lorrie Moore at her most mature and in a perfect configuration of craft, mind, and bewitched spirit, as she explores the passage of time and summons up its inevitable sorrows and hilarious pitfalls to reveal her own exquisite, singular wisdom. In “Debarking,” a newly divorced man tries to keep his wits about him as the United States prepares to invade Iraq, and against this ominous moment, we see—in all its irresistible wit and darkness—the perils of divorce and what can follow in its wake . . . In “Foes,” a political argument goes grotesquely awry as the events of 9/11 unexpectedly manifest themselves at a fund-raising dinner in Georgetown . . . In “The Juniper Tree,” a teacher visited by the ghost of her recently deceased friend is forced to sing “The Star-Spangled Banner” in a kind of nightmare reunion . . . And in “Wings,” we watch the inevitable unraveling of two once-hopeful musicians, neither of whom held fast to their dreams nor struck out along other paths, as Moore deftly depicts the intricacies of dead-ends-ville and the workings of regret . . . Here are people beset, burdened, buoyed; protected by raising teenage children; dating after divorce; facing the serious illness of a longtime friend; setting forth on a romantic assignation abroad, having it interrupted mid-trip, and coming to understand the larger ramifications and the impossibility of the connection . . . stories that show people coping with large dislocation in their lives, with risking a new path to answer the desire to be in relation—to someone . . . Gimlet-eyed social observation, the public and private absurdities of American life, dramatic irony, and enduring half-cracked love wend their way through each of these narratives in a heartrending mash-up of the tragic and the laugh-out-loud—the hallmark of life in Lorrie-Moore-land. This eBook edition includes a Reading Group Guide.
From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Children of Crisis, a profound examination of how listening to stories promotes learning and self-discovery. As a professor emeritus at Harvard University, a renowned child psychiatrist, and the author of more than forty books, including The Moral Intelligence of Children, Robert Coles knows better than anyone the transformative power of learning and literature on young minds. In this “persuasive” book (The New York Times Book Review), Coles convenes a virtual symposium of college, law, and medical school students to explore the phenomenon of storytelling as a source of values and character. Here are transcriptions of classroom conversations in which Coles and his students discuss the impact of particular works of literature on their moral development. Here also are Coles’s intimate personal reflections on his experiences in the civil rights movement, his child psychiatry practice, and his interactions with his own literary mentors including William Carlos Williams and L.E. Sissman. The life lessons learned from these stories are of special resonance to doctors and teachers looking to apply them in classroom and clinical environments. The rare public intellectual to be honored with a MacArthur Award, a Presidential Medal of Freedom, and a National Humanities Medal, Robert Coles is a true national treasure, and The Call of Stories is, in the words of National Book Award winner Walker Percy, “Coles at his wisest and best.”
The most popular, provocative, and unforgettable essays from the past fifteen years of the New York Times “Modern Love” column—including stories from the anthology series starring Tina Fey, Andy Garcia, Anne Hathaway, Catherine Keener, Dev Patel, and John Slattery A young woman goes through the five stages of ghosting grief. A man’s promising fourth date ends in the emergency room. A female lawyer with bipolar disorder experiences the highs and lows of dating. A widower hesitates about introducing his children to his new girlfriend. A divorcée in her seventies looks back at the beauty and rubble of past relationships. These are just a few of the people who tell their stories in Modern Love, Revised and Updated, featuring dozens of the most memorable essays to run in The New York Times “Modern Love” column since its debut in 2004. Some of the stories are unconventional, while others hit close to home. Some reveal the way technology has changed dating forever; others explore the timeless struggles experienced by anyone who has ever searched for love. But all of the stories are, above everything else, honest. Together, they tell the larger story of how relationships begin, often fail, and—when we’re lucky—endure. Edited by longtime “Modern Love” editor Daniel Jones and featuring a diverse selection of contributors, this is the perfect book for anyone who’s loved, lost, stalked an ex on social media, or pined for true romance: In other words, anyone interested in the endlessly complicated workings of the human heart. Featuring essays by: Veronica Chambers • Terri Cheney • Deborah Copaken • Trey Ellis • Jean Hanff Korelitz • Ann Hood • Mindy Hung • Amy Krouse Rosenthal • Ann Leary • Andrew Rannells • Larry Smith • Ayelet Waldman • and more!
Four couples. Four seasons. A lifetime of love. Dogwoods in Springtime Still in mourning three years after her husband’s death, Caroline Ballard’s solitary life in rural Kentucky is disrupted by a broken water line, of all things. As if the lack of running water wasn’t bad enough, her immediate attraction to plumbing contractor Rick Spencer unearths emotions long thought buried. Opening her heart to love for a second time, a malicious lie told by his ex-wife threatens to end the budding relationship before it begins. Seashells in Summer Having adopted her four-year-old daughter, Lily, at birth, Taylor Brightman is suspicious when former Marine Sergeant Grant Cutler appears on her Nantucket Island doorstep claiming to be the girl’s biological father. Wary of his motives, his good looks and charming personality win her over, but can she trust that she won’t lose custody along with her heart? Aspens in Autumn Ramsey Fiorentino is having a bad day. On the run for her life after witnessing a murder, she’s being pursued by none other than Bishop Hamilton, a private investigator hired by the person who committed the crime. When he catches up to her and the truth comes out, they flee to the mountains of Flagstaff, Arizona to hide, but it’s only a matter of time before their newfound romance is tested in the wake of a deadly confrontation. Snowflakes in Winter When New Hampshire State Trooper Alex Ballard becomes stranded during a blizzard in the middle of the night, he seeks refuge at a local bed and breakfast, surprised to discover the owner, Chloe Mancuso, is the sole occupant. A passionate night spent in each other’s arms ignites feelings neither thought possible, but there’s someone else with his eye on Chloe and he’s not willing to share.
