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"Sweeping between Prague during World War II and modern day Los Angeles, this ... debut follows a young Jewish man in 1934 who falls in love and joins the circus as the country descends into war. Decades later, a young boy seeks out the now cynical, elderly magician in the hopes that his spells might keep his family together"--
Bobbie Holderman’s life is in the dumps. He got his girlfriend pregnant, arranged for an abortion, and then she died as a result of being butchered. He unwittingly has a close encounter with a transvestite, then is caught stealing. Given a choice of jail or serving a term in the Army, he chooses the Army. It’s not long before he is court-martialed and given a dishonorable discharge. He falls into a relationship with a junkie, and overdoses on hard rock cocaine. In an out of body experience, he is standing over his body while doctors work to save him, when he is approached by a man who offers to save him. The man offers him fame and fortune in exchange for his soul. The alternative: face “The Judges” who will punish him harshly for killing himself. Bobbie takes the deal, which is sealed by wearing and emerald ring. This ring now controls his destiny. It’s not until his life is again in danger that he discovers that he has been tricked. Now he must find a way to go back and undo the deal with the demon.
Mavi, who won her life by making illusion, will witness one night her husband cheating on her. Mavi, who has won a miracle against every shortfall, every pulse in life, gets a new miracle on Saturday. now the spirit will be consumed while the spirit is strengthening. The choice between being and being is its last show.
The old saying goes: 'A problem shared is a problem halved'. But what if your problem is secret? Erica, newly widowed, is devastated to discover her venture capitalist husband left their finances in ruins. Determined to save her home while protecting her teenage daughters, she vows to get back on her feet without letting them, or anyone else, know the truth. When her girls head off on a long-planned overseas adventure, Erica focuses on her much-loved job behind a makeup counter to keep her emotionally and financially afloat - although she is troubled by a peculiar encounter at work. Then she loses her job, the darkness beckons and Erica's life spirals downwards, further disturbed by strange occurrences in her house. Missing objects. Stopped clocks. Noises in the night. Should she doubt her very sanity? Can she swallow her pride and make herself reach out to her friends in time? Does she have a choice? A moving story of loss, change and self-discovery from Australia's master storyteller.
'Hugely enjoyable' - Observer 'Spectacular' - Aaron Brown, author of The Poker Face of Wall Street Some people can make money. Other people can't. It's a thought that makes William Leith wake up in a cold sweat. He doesn't know why it makes him feel anxious. After all, money isn't real. We created it. Humans did. It's our masterpiece. But the desire for it is killing us. It is this dilemma that sets William Leith off on an adventure into the bizarre, morally dubious, yet highly desirable world of the mega-rich. He spends a day with the real-life Wolf of Wall Street who, not content with his hundreds of millions, devised a fraud so he could make hundreds of millions more. He visits a Baroque mansion where a Russian half-billionaire lives alone with his butler. He tours the estate of Felix Dennis, the maverick tycoon who commissioned an avenue of statues to tell the story of his life. He flies to private islands on private jets, meets private men in private clubs, experiencing the dizzy highs of a life without limits – but all it does is give him crippling anxiety. Throughout it all he asks himself: what makes these people wealthy? And how come I'm not?
A weary man faces the ghosts of his past while caring for his grandson in Naples in this National Book Award finalist novel by the acclaimed author of Ties. In Tricks, Domenico Starnone presents an unusual duel between two formidable minds. One is Daniele Mallarico, a once-successful illustrator who feels his artistic prowess fading. The other is Mario, Daniele’s four-year-old grandson. Daniele is living in virtual solitude in Milan when his daughter asks him to come to Naples to babysit Mario for a few days. Shut inside his childhood home―an apartment in the center of Naples that is filled with memoires of Daniele’s past―grandfather and grandson match wits as Daniele heads toward a reckoning with his own ambitions and life choices. Meanwhile, Naples pulses outside, a wily, passionate city whose influence can never be shaken. As translator Jhumpa Lahiri says in her introduction, Trick is “an extremely playful literary composition” by the Strega Prize–winning novelist whom many consider to be one of Italy’s greatest living writers.
Written in a form of protagonist's letters to his Australian friend, this novel is a subtle and psychologically exact depiction of the moral degradation of an ordinary man afflicted with envy.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “From The New Yorker’s beloved cultural critic comes a bold, unflinching collection of essays about self-deception, examining everything from scammer culture to reality television.”—Esquire Book Club Pick for Now Read This, from PBS NewsHour and The New York Times • “A whip-smart, challenging book.”—Zadie Smith • “Jia Tolentino could be the Joan Didion of our time.”—Vulture FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE’S JOHN LEONARD PRIZE FOR BEST FIRST BOOK • NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY AND HARVARD CRIMSON AND ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • Time • Chicago Tribune • The Washington Post • NPR • Variety • Esquire • Vox • Elle • Glamour • GQ • Good Housekeeping • The Paris Review • Paste • Town & Country • BookPage • Kirkus Reviews • BookRiot • Shelf Awareness Jia Tolentino is a peerless voice of her generation, tackling the conflicts, contradictions, and sea changes that define us and our time. Now, in this dazzling collection of nine entirely original essays, written with a rare combination of give and sharpness, wit and fearlessness, she delves into the forces that warp our vision, demonstrating an unparalleled stylistic potency and critical dexterity. Trick Mirror is an enlightening, unforgettable trip through the river of self-delusion that surges just beneath the surface of our lives. This is a book about the incentives that shape us, and about how hard it is to see ourselves clearly through a culture that revolves around the self. In each essay, Tolentino writes about a cultural prism: the rise of the nightmare social internet; the advent of scamming as the definitive millennial ethos; the literary heroine’s journey from brave to blank to bitter; the punitive dream of optimization, which insists that everything, including our bodies, should become more efficient and beautiful until we die. Gleaming with Tolentino’s sense of humor and capacity to elucidate the impossibly complex in an instant, and marked by her desire to treat the reader with profound honesty, Trick Mirror is an instant classic of the worst decade yet. FINALIST FOR THE PEN/DIAMONSTEIN-SPIELVOGEL AWARD FOR THE ART OF THE ESSAY
View our feature on Rob Thurman’s Trick of the Light.When Trixa learns of a powerful artifact known as the Light of Life, she knows she’s hit the jackpot. Both sides—angel and demon—would give anything for it. But first she has to find it. And as Heaven and Hell ready for an apocalyptic throwdown, Trixa must decide where her true loyalty lies, and what she’s ready to fight for. Because in her world, if you line up on the wrong side, you pay with more than your life…
Are you truly in danger or has your brain simply "tricked" you into thinking you are? In The Worry Trick, psychologist and anxiety expert David Carbonell shows how anxiety hijacks the brain and offers effective techniques to help you break the cycle of worry, once and for all. Anxiety is a powerful force. It makes us question ourselves and our decisions, causes us to worry about the future, and fills our days with dread and emotional turbulence. Based in acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), this book is designed to help you break the cycle of worry. Worry convinces us there's danger, and then tricks us into getting into fight, flight, or freeze mode—even when there is no danger. The techniques in this book, rather than encouraging you to avoid or try to resist anxiety, shows you how to see the trick that underlies your anxious thoughts, and how avoidance can backfire and make anxiety worse. If you’re ready to start observing your anxious feelings with distance and clarity—rather than getting tricked once again—this book will show you how.
