**DEBUT FICTION** Mary Todd Lincoln is one of history's mostmisunderstood and enigmatic women. The first president's wife to becalled First Lady, she was a political strategist, a supporter ofemancipation, and a mother who survived the loss of three childrenand the assassination of her beloved husband. Yet she also ran herfamily into debt, held seances in the White House, and wascommitted to an insane asylum. In Janis Cooke Newman's debut novel,Mary Todd Lincoln shares the story of her life in her own words.Writing from Bellevue Place asylum, she takes readers from hertempestuous childhood in a slaveholding Southern family through theyears after her husband's death. A dramatic tale filled withpassion and depression, poverty and ridicule, infidelity andredemption, Mary allows us entry into the inner, intimate world ofthis brave and fascinating woman.
Six years ago, Jack Till helped Wendy Harper disappear. But nowher ex-boyfriend and former business partner, Eric Fuller, is beingframed for her presumed murder in an effort to smoke her out, andTill must find her before tango-dancing assassins Paul and SylvieTurner do. The Turners are merely hired to do a job, though, andprefer to remain anonymous. When they find that a middleman has letthe true employer know their identities, finishing the job is nolonger enough. Their fee just went up. Full of masterful plottingand unnerving psychological insight, "Silence "is a mesmerizingthrill ride.
William J. Mann, author of the bestselling Kate: The WomanWho Was Hepburn, has now turned his attention to ElizabethTaylor, the quintessential movie star, and uses her biography toreveal the machinations of stardom and fame, from the studio era ofHollywood through the 1970s. How to Be a Movie Star isa totally fresh, brilliantly researched, and reported portrait ofElizabeth Taylor, as she became our first superstar. It isalso a fascinating revelation of cadre that got her there, from hermother to her managers, publicists, gossip columnists, and earlypaparazzi--and, not least of all, herself. Swathed in mink, sailing aboard her yachts, discarding husbandsnearly as frequently as she changed diamond earrings, Taylordominated the headlines for three glittering decades, rewritingrules, defying conventions, laying down the yardstick by whichcelebrity has been measured ever since. Focusing on the mostglamorous period in Taylor's career, Mann takes us inside herprivileged childhood in England to her schooling
A teenage gang comes of age in the 1960s Bronx. Written whenthe author was twenty-four, this story was the basis for a majorfeature film.
At a time when her life seemed to be crumbling, KatherineRussell Rich took on a writing assignment in India, Where she wasseduced by the idea of learning to speak Hindi, the language sheheard swirling all around her. In a rash moment, she determinedshe’d go live and study in the Ancient city of Udaipur. Thatdecision lead to unexpected reclamation. In this beautiful and spirited memoir, she documents herexperiences, from the bizarre to the frightening to the full-outexhilarating. Seamlessly combining her courageous (and oftenhilarious) personal journey with reporting on the science oflanguage acquisition, Dreaming in Hindi offers an eye-openingaccount of what learning a new tongue can teach us about distantworlds and, ultimately, about ourselves.
Two classic plays translated by a Pulitzer Prize-winning poetinto English verse. In The Misanthrope, society itself is indictedand the impurity of its critics motives is exposed. In Tartuffe,the bigoted and prudish Orgon falls completely under the power ofthe wily Tartuffe. Introductions by Richard Wilbur.
Originally subtitled "An Adventurous Education, 1935-1946",this book is a key volume in Kerouac's lifework, the series ofautobiographical novels he referred to as The Legend of Duluoz. Awonderfully unassuming look back at the origins of his career--aprehistory of the Beat era, written from the perspective of thepsychedelic '60s.
What Pete Tarslaw wants is simple enough: a realistic amount offame that will open new avenues of sexual opportunity; the kind offinancial comfort that will allow him to spend his life pursuinghobbies such as boating or skeet shooting at his stately home bythe ocean or a scenic lake; and—perhaps mostly importantly—thechance to humiliate his ex-girlfriend at her wedding. This is thestory of how he succeeds in getting it all, and what it costs himin the end. Narrated by an unlikely literary legend, How I Became A FamousNovelist pinballs from the post-college slums of Boston, to thefear-drenched halls of Manhattan's publishing houses, from thegloomy purity of Montana’s foremost writing workshop to thehedonistic hotel bars of the Sunset Strip. The horrifying,hilarious tale of how Pete’s “pile of garbage” called The TornadoAshes Club became the most talked about, blogged about, read,admired, and reviled novel in America will change everything youthink you know about literature, appearance, truth, be
In one of his finest achievements, Nobel Prize winner SaulBellow presents a multifaceted portrait of a modern-day hero, a manstruggling with the complexity of existence and longing forredemption. Introduction by Philip Roth
"I am going to take a heroine whom no-one but myself will muchlike," Jane Austen wrote, but young Emma Woodhouse, in spite of herweaknesses, has charmed generations of readers. Bossy, a littlespoilt, and too eager to control other's lives for what shebelieves is their own good, she creates misunderstandings withevery tactic she employs. But when her attempts to match-make goawry, she learns a hard lesson about life, love, and growing up.The world's greatest works of literature are now available inbeautiful keepsake volumes. Bound in real cloth, and featuring giltedges and ribbon markers, these beautifully produced books are awonderful way to build a handsome library of classic literature.These are the essential novels that belong in every home. They'lltransport readers to imaginary worlds and provide excitement,entertainment, and enlightenment for years to come. All of thesenovels feature attractive illustrations and have an unequalledperiod feel that will grace the library, the bedside table orbureau.
Dick Young is lent a house in Cornwall by his friendProfessor Magnus Lane. During his stay he agrees to serve as aguinea pig for a new drug that Magnus has discovered in hisbiochemical researches. The effect of this drug is to transportDick from the house at Kilmarth to the Cornwall of the 14thcentury. There, in the manor of Tywardreath, the domain of SirHenry Champernoune, he witnesses intrigue, adultery and murder. Ashis time travelling increases, Dick resents more and more the dayshe must spend in the modern world, longing ever more fervently toget back into his world of centuries before ...
Love blooms in the second novel in Nora Roberts's celebratedBride Quartet series. As little girls MacKensie, Emma, Laurel, andParker spent hours acting out their perfect make believe "I do"moments. Years later their fantasies become reality when they starttheir own wedding planning company to make every woman's dream daycome true. With perfect flowers, delicious desserts, and joyfulmoments captured on film, Nora Roberts's Bride Quartet shares eachwoman's emotionally magical journey to romance. "In Bed of Roses,"florist Emma Grant is finding career success with her friends atVows wedding planning company, and her love life appears to bethriving. Though men swarm around her, she still hasn't found Mr.Right. And the last place she's looking is right under her nose.But that's just where Jack Cooke is. He's so close to the women ofVows that he's practically family, but the architect has begun toadmit to himself that his feelings for Emma have developed intomuch more than friendship. When Emma returns his pa
Porter's reputation as one of americanca's most distinguishedwriters rests chiefly on her superb short stories. This volumeincludes the collections Flowering Judas; Pale Horse, Pale Rider;and The Leaning Tower as well as four stories not availableelsewhere in book form. Winner of the National Book Award and thePulitzer Prize.
From the Booker Prize-winning author of The Remains of theDay comes a devastating new novel of innocence, knowledge, andloss. As children Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy were students at Hailsham,an exclusive boarding school secluded in the English countryside.It was a place of mercurial cliques and mysterious rules whereteachers were constantly reminding their charges of how specialthey were. Now, years later, Kathy is a young woman. Ruth and Tommy havereentered her life. And for the first time she is beginning to lookback at their shared past and understand just what it is that makesthem special–and how that gift will shape the rest of their timetogether. Suspenseful, moving, beautifully atmospheric, NeverLet Me Go is another classic by the author of The Remains ofthe Day
