In her follow-up to the critically acclaimed novel The Anxiety of Everyday Objects, Aurelie Sheehan presents a moving coming-of-age story set in the disturbingly reckless and often hilariously tacky 1970s. In 1975, Alison Glass, age thirteen, moves to Connecticut with her bohemian parents and her horse, Jazz. Shy, observant, and in a back bra...more
NATHAN NELSON IS THE AVERAGE SON OF A GENIUS. His father, a physicist of small renown, has prodded him toward greatness from an early age -- enrolling him in whiz kid summer camps, taking him to the icy tundra of Canada to track a solar eclipse, and teaching him college algebra. But despite Samuel Nelson's efforts, Nathan remains ordinary.Then, in ...more
In her absorbing debut novel, Sheehan’s depiction of the working girl’s life in the big city is as charming as it is inspiring. Single, not yet thirty, and devoted companion to her dignified cat, Fruit Bat, Winona Bartlett is a secretary at a New York City law firm. Though she finds a certain security in the rituals of her demandingly undemandi...more
Time magazine crowned Girl With a Pearl Earring "a portrait of radiance...a jewel." In her New York Times bestselling follow-up, Tracy Chevalier once again paints a distant age with a rich and provocative palette of characters. Told through a variety of shifting perspectives- wives and husbands, friends and lovers, masters and their servants, and a...more
Medical school dropout Victor Mancini comes up with a complicated but ingenious scam to pay for his mother's elder care--pretend to be choking in a restaurant and con the individuals who "save" him into giving him money--while he cruises sex addiction groups for action, and visits his sick mother, whose Alzheimer's disease hides the bizarre truth a...more
With the same stunning blend of prophecy and social satire she brought to her classic The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood gives us a keenly prescient novel about the future of humanity—and its present. Humanity here equals Snowman, and in Snowman’s recollections Atwood re-creates a time much like our own, when a boy named Jimmy loved an elus...more
Readers beware. The brilliant, breathtaking conclusion to J.K. Rowling's spellbinding series is not for the faint of heart--such revelations, battles, and betrayals await in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows that no fan will make it to the end unscathed. Luckily, Rowling has prepped loyal readers for the end of her series by doling out increasin...more
Survivor, the second novel by Chuck Palahniuk--whose debut novel The Fight Club was widely received to critical acclaim--is a deranged comedy of nightmares, a groin-kick at Western society's worst excesses. This is satire at its best, and Palahniuk handles it all with a distinct, engaging prose style and with plot devices that keep the pages turnin...more