Cozy lovers' favorite otherworldly detective cracks a classiccountry-house case. In Atherton's sixteenth mystery, Lori Shepherd returns from DownUnder to her normal life in the village of Finch. But Lori's normalquickly becomes anything but. Her debonair father-in-law has moved to town and is renovatingFairworth House, a grand estate nearby. William Sr. expects aquiet, small-town life, but among the spinsters vying for hisattention, shifty servants, and the discovery of a mysteriouspainting of a family tree in Fairworth's attic, he discovers thatlife in Finch is anything but quiet. On top of it all, Lori andWilliam are embroiled in a case of deception and false identity byone of Finch's own. It's nothing the plucky Lori can't handle, butonce things get truly peculiar at Fairworth-moving furniture,strange sounds, and mysterious visitors-she calls on Aunt Dimityfor her otherworldly guidance and uncovers the shadowy past beneaththe estate's magnificent surface. Nancy Atherton's titles co
"The best novel to come out of America-or England-for ageneration." -V.S. Pritchett, The New York Review of Books In this unique noir masterpiece by the incomparable Saul Bellow,a young man is sucked into the mysterious, heat-filled vortex ofNew York City. Asa Leventhal, a temporary bachelor with his wifeaway on a visit to her mother, attempts to find relief from aGotham heat wave, only to be accosted in the park by adown-at-the-heels stranger who accuses Leventhal of ruining hislife. Unable to shake the stranger loose, Leventhal is led by hisown self-doubts and suspicions into a nightmare of paranoia andfear.
When Julia Child told Dorie Greenspan, “You write recipes justthe way I do,” she paid her the ultimate compliment. Julia’s praisewas echoed by the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, whichreferred to Dorie’s “wonderfully encouraging voice” and “the senseof a real person who is there to help should you stumble.” Now in a big, personal, and personable book, Dorie captures allthe excitement of French home cooking, sharing disarmingly simpledishes she has gathered over years of living in France. Around My French Table includes many superb renditions of thegreat classics: a glorious cheese-domed onion soup, a spoon-tenderbeef daube, and the “top-secret” chocolate mousse recipe that everygood Parisian cook knows—but won’t reveal. Hundreds of other recipes are remarkably easy: a cheese and olivequick bread, a three-star chef’s Basque potato tortilla made with asurprise ingredient (potato chips), and an utterly satisfying roastchicken for “lazy people.”
The Fortress of Solitude is the story of Dylan Ebdus growingup white and motherless in downtown Brooklyn in the 1970s. It's aneighborhood where the entertainments include muggings along withgames of stoopball. In that world, Dylan has one friend, a blackteenager, also motherless, named Mingus Rude. As Lethem follows theknitting and unraveling of their friendship, he creates anoverwhelmingly rich and emotionally gripping canvas of race andclass, superheros, gentrification, funk, hip-hop, graffiti tagging,loyalty, and memory. The Fortress of Solitude" "is the first greaturban coming of age novel to appear in years.
The definitive story of the Red Sox, a best-selling classic, nowexpanded and updated to include the incredible 2004 season andWorld Series win. In that magic fall of 2004, the Boston Red Soxtransformed themselves from an unruly band of self-proclaimedidiots into world champions for the first time in eighty-six years.Their unlikely triumph became known instantly as one of the mostthrilling, nerve-racking, and ultimately inspiring sports storiesever. And it also changed the course of history for a franchisethat had long been known more for its failures than for itssuccesses. In Red Sox Century, "the best of the Sox sages" (USAToday Baseball Weekly) chronicle the complete history of thisenduring team with authority, insight, and high style. From theteam's inception in 1901 and its early peak in 1918, when it wonits fifth World Series, to the glory years, which saw the rise ofsuch greats as Cy Young, Babe Ruth, Teddy Ballgame, and Yaz and the"impossible dream," to the near misses in 1975, 1986, and 2003, andfina
GBF Discussion; Guide online Introduction by CynthiaOzick.
The author of Leviathan returns with a dazzling, picaresque,new novel in which Walter Claireborne Rawley, now an octogenarian,recounts his extraordinary vaudevillian adventures as "Walt theWonder Boy" in 1924. "One hears every page of this novel, and seesit as well".--Washington Post.
In this widely hailed book, NPR correspondent Tom Gjeltenfuses the story of the Bacardi family and their famous rum businesswith Cuba's tumultuous experience over the last 150 years toproduce a deeply entertaining historical narrative. The companyFacundo Bacardi launched in Cuba in 1862 brought worldwide fame tothe island, and in the decades that followed his Bacardidescendants participated in every aspect of Cuban life. With hisintimate account of their struggles and adventures across fivegenerations, Gjelten brings to life the larger story of Cuba'sfight for freedom, its tortured relationship with America, the riseof Fidel Castro, and the violent division of the Cuban nation.
A man went to knock at the king's door and said, Give me aboat. The king's house had many other doors, but this was the doorfor petitions. Since the king spent all his time sitting at thedoor for favors (favors being offered to the king, you understand),whenever he heard someone knocking at the door for petitions, hewould pretend not to hear . . ." Why the petitioner required aboat, where he was bound for, and who volunteered to crew for him,the reader will discover in this delightful fable, a philosophiclove story worthy of Swift or Voltaire.
An aging but formidable strip club owner, Claudiu "Manco"Kapak, is robbed as he places his cash receipts in a bank’snight-deposit box. Enraged, he sends his henchmen out to find asuspect who is spending lots of cash and is too new to Los Angelesto realize he’s stolen from a gangster. Their search leads to JoeCarver, an innocent who evades capture and sets out to make Kapakwish he’d chosen someone else. Meanwhile, the real culprit,Jefferson Davis Falkins, and his girlfriend Carrie seem to believethey’ve found a whole new profession: robbing Manco Kapak. Lieutenant Nick Slosser, the detective in charge of the puzzlingand increasingly violent case, has his own troubles, includingworries about how he’s going to afford to send the oldest child ofeach of his two bigamous marriages to college without making theirmothers suspicious. As this odd series of difficulties explodesinto a triple killing, Carver finds himself in the middle of a gangwar over Kapak’s empire, while Falkins and Carrie jo
Balzac's great theme was money, and he explored its uses andabuses with all the particularity of the masterful poet he was. OldGoriot, betrayed by rapacious daughters, and Rastignac, anambitious provincial youth alive to his opportunities, form thetwin foci around which the grasping Parisian society of the 1820srevolves, in this, his most economical and universally lovednovel.
Slapstick presents an apocalyptic vision seen through the eyesof the current King of Manhattan (and last President of the UnitedStates), a wickedly irreverent look at the all-too-possible resultsof today's follies. But even the end of life-as-we-know-it istransformed by Vonnegut's pen into hilarious farce (a finalslapstick that may be the Almighty's joke on us all.) "Vonnegut'songoing puppet show...that fabulous is reborn."--John Updike "Bothfunny and sad...just about perfect "--"Los AngelesTimes""Imaginative and hilarious...a brilliant vision of ourwrecked, wacked-out future."--"Hartford Courant "*"The New YorkTimes"
From the moment of its publication, The Apprentice establisheditself as an "instant classic" (Anthony Bourdain). With sparklingwit and occasional pathos, the man whom Julia Child has called "thebest chef in America" tells the captivating story of his rise froma terrified thirteen-year-old toiling in an Old World Frenchkitchen to an American superstar who ad-libbed and demonstratedculinary wizardry as the cameras rolled and changed Americantastes. The Apprentice is an engrossing tale of the modern cookingscene and how it came to be, told from an engaging personalperspective. The story begins in prewar France, with young Jacquescutting his teeth in his mother's small restaurants. Moving toParis, it offers tantalizing glimpses of Sartre and Genet. In hisrole as Charles de Gaulle's personal chef, Jacques witnesseshistory being made from behind the swinging door of the kitchen. InAmerica, he rejects an offer to be chef in the Kennedy White House,choosing instead to work at Howard Johnson's. He then proceeds
First published in 1908, "The Old Wives' Tale" affirms theintegrity of ordinary lives as it tells the story of the Bainessisters - shy, retiring Constance and defiant, romantic Sophia -over the course of nearly half a century. Bennett traces thesisters' lives from childhood in their father's drapery shop inprovincial Bursley, England, during the mid-Victorian era, throughtheir married lives, to the modern industrial age, when they arereunited as old women. The setting moves from the Five Towns ofStaffordshire to exotic and cosmopolitan Paris, while the actionmoves from the subdued domestic routine of the Baines household tothe siege of Paris during the Franco-Prussian War.
The Book of Salt serves up a wholly original take on Paris inthe 1930s through the eyes of Binh, the Vietnamese cook employed byGertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. Viewing his famous mesdames andtheir entourage from the kitchen of their rue de Fleurus home, Binhobserves their domestic entanglements while seeking his own placein the world. In a mesmerizing tale of yearning and betrayal,Monique Truong explores Paris from the salons of its artists to thedark nightlife of its outsiders and exiles. She takes us back toBinh's youthful servitude in Saigon under colonial rule, to hislife as a galley hand at sea, to his brief, fateful encounters inParis with Paul Robeson and the young Ho Chi Minh.
A look at the events surrounding the incarceration of nativeAmerican activist Leonard Peltier elucidates the traditional Indianconcept of the sacred inviolability of the earth and presents newevidence supporting Peltier's claims of innocence, arguing for anew trial. Reprint.
