FIFTH BUSINESS, a novel exploring notions of fate and identity, relates the complicated fortunes of four characters linked together by a snowball thrown on December 27, 1908: Boy Staunton (who threw it), Amasa Dempster (who was struck by it), Paul Dempster (who was born prematurely as a result), and Leola Cruikshank (who marries Staunton years ...more
When F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote THE GREAT GATSBY in the early 1920s, the American Dream was already on the skids. Originally based on the idea that the pursuit of happiness involves not only material success but moral and spiritual growth, the dream had by Fitzgerald's time become increasingly focused on money and pleasure--a phenomenon the high-liv...more
David Sedaris became a star autobiographer on public radio, onstage in New York, and on bestseller lists, mostly on the strength of Santaland Diaries a scathing, hilarious account of his stint as a Christmas elf at Macy's department store. Sedaris's caustic gift has not deserted him in his fourth book, which mines poignant comedy from his peculiar ...more
In Graham Greene's comic novel a staid middle-aged bank manager, newly retired, has his life rearranged by his eccentric, freewheeling elderly aunt Augusta. Henry Pulling has very modest expectations when he agrees to a holiday on the Continent with Aunt Augusta, but the trip turns into something he is, to say the least, not prepared for. Augusta, ...more
Three men meet on a ship bound for Haiti, a world in the grip of the corrupt "Papa Doc" and the Tontons Macoute, his sinister secret police. Brown the hotelier, Smith the innocent American, and Jones the confidence man—these are the "comedians" of Greene’s title. Hiding behind their actors’ masks, they hesitate on the edge of life. They...more
On her way home from school on a snowy December day in 1973, 14-year-old Susie Salmon ("like the fish") is lured into a makeshift underground den in a cornfield and brutally raped and murdered, the latest victim of a serial killer--the man she knew as her neighbor, Mr. Harvey. Alice Sebold's haunting and heartbreaking debut novel, The Lovely Bones,...more
Set in Vietnam in the 1950s, during the last days of French colonial rule, THE QUIET AMERICAN was based partly on Graham Greene's own experiences in Vietnam as a correspondent for the London Times. The book's narrator is an English journalist named Fowler who lives in Saigon with his Vietnamese mistress, Phuong, but is unable to convince his Cathol...more
No Messages
Buy from Amazon
