Newlyweds Jennifer and Matt really love each other. They never lived together before they were married-and so both were shocked to learn all the little things that go with living with one's spouse. Who knew that in his family, Saturdays were for tackling chores, while in her family Saturdays were for sleeping late? Now, two nice people from nice families are finding out that they do everything differently-and suddenly, they're in the ring with gloves on! Week by week, the fights take both of them by surprise-they never meant to be the kind of couple that acts this way. Simultaneously, though, Jennifer and Matt are building something strong, knocking down old walls of habit and finding the strong foundation of a love that will see them through.This is one year in a marriage-the beginning of a lifetime.
Every year, Ceyala "Lala" Reyes' family--aunts, uncles,mothers, fathers, and Lala's six older brothers--packs up threecars and, in a wild ride, drive from Chicago to the LittleGrandfather and Awful Grandmother's house in Mexico City for thesummer. Struggling to find a voice above the boom of her brothersand to understand her place on this side of the border and that,Lala is a shrewd observer of family life. But when she startstelling the Awful Grandmother's life story, seeking clues to howshe got to be so awful, grandmother accuses Lala of exaggerating.Soon, a multigenerational family narrative turns into a whirlwindexploration of storytelling, lies, and life. Like the cherished"rebozo," or shawl, that has been passed down through generationsof Reyes women, Caramelo is alive with the vibrations of history,family, and love.
(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed) "Mrs. Dalloway "chronicles aJune day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway-a day that is taken upwith running minor errands in preparation for a party and that ispunctuated, toward the end, by the suicide of a young man she hasnever met. In giving an apparently ordinary day such immenseresonance and significance-infusing it with the elemental conflictbetween death and life-Virginia Woolf triumphantly discovers herdistinctive style as a novelist. Originally published in 1925,"Mrs. Dalloway "is Woolf's first complete rendering of what shedescribed as the "luminous envelope" of consciousness: a dazzlingdisplay of the mind's inside as it plays over the brilliant surfaceand darker depths of reality. This edition uses the text of theoriginal British publication of "Mrs. Dalloway," which includeschanges Woolf made that never appeared in the first or subsequentAmerican editions.
Sixteen-year-old suburbanite Chris Lloyd and his mate Tonispend their free time wishing they were French, making up storiesabout strangers, and pretending to be fl?neurs. When they grow upthey'd like to be "artists-in-residence at a nudist colony." Ifyouthful voyeurism figures heavily in their everyday lives, so,too, do the pleasures of analogy, metaphor, and deliberatemisprision. Sauntering into one store that dares to call itself MANSHOP, Toni demands: "One man and two small boys, please." Julian Barnes could probably fill several books with these boys'clever misadventures, but in his first novel he attempts somethingmore daring--the curve from youthful scorn to adult contentment. In1968, when Chris goes off to Paris, he misses the May événementsbut manages, more importantly, to fall in love and learn thepleasures of openness: "The key to Annick's candour was that therewas no key. It was like the atom bomb: the secret is that there isno secret." The final section finds Chris back in suburb
In Barcelona, an aging Brazilian prostitute trains her dog toweep at the grave she has chosen for herself. In Vienna, a womanparlays her gift for seeing the future into a fortunetellingposition with a wealthy family. In Geneva, an ambulance driver andhis wife take in the lonely, apparently dying ex-President of aCaribbean country, only to discover that his political ambition isvery much intact. In these twelve masterly stories about the livesof Latin Americans in Europe, Garcia Marquez conveys the peculiaramalgam of melancholy, tenacity, sorrow, and aspiration that is theemigre experience.
Wishing she could enjoy the freedoms and pleasures so casuallyenjoyed by ordinary women, orthodox rabbi's daughter Rachelanticipates her arranged marriage and imagines what her life willbe like. Reprint.
Joyce Carol Oates's Wonderland Quartet comprises fourremarkable novels that explore social class in America and theinner lives of young Americans. In "A Garden of Earthly Delights,"Oates presents one of her most memorable heroines, Clara Walpole,the beautiful daughter of Kentucky-born migrant farmworkers.Desperate to rise above her haphazard existence of violence andpoverty, determined not to repeat her mother's life, Clarastruggles for independence by way of her relationships with fourvery different men: her father, a family man turned itinerantlaborer, smoldering with resentment; the mysterious Lowry, whorescues Clara as a teenager and offers her the possibility of love;Revere, a wealthy landowner who provides Clara with stability; andSwan, Clara's son, who bears the psychological and spiritual burdenof his mother's ambition. A masterly work from a writer with "theuncanny ability to give us a cinemascopic vision of her America"("National Review"), "A Garden of Earthly Delights "is the openingstanza i
With his first groundbreaki'ng book, Soul Prints, Marc Gafni taught readers how to tread a lifelong path of meaning by realizing their true, unique selves. Now, in The Mystery of Love, the profound philosopher and beloved spiritual teacher invites readers to the next step on the journey, addressing with passion, wisdom, and genuine humility the all-important issues of love, creativity, and our erotic connection to the universe. In the tradition of M. Scott Peck's The Road Less Traveled and Gary Zukov's The Seat of the Soul, The Mystery of Love speaks pene-tratingly to the age-old desire to move beyond emptiness and alienation and touch the full eros of living. Gafni, with clarity, bril- liance, and great compassion, re-frames our understandings of the erotic and the sensual in a way that invites us to live with passion and love in all facets of our lives. While drawn from the ancient wisdom texts of the Kabbalist tradi-tion, The Mystery of Love speaks to all readers who seek a passionate, joyful, yet
" A stranger could drive through Miguel Street and just say 'Slum ' because he could see no more." But to its residents thisderelict corner of Trinidad' s capital is a complete world, whereeverybody is quite different from everybody else. There' s Popo thecarpenter, who neglects his livelihood to build " the thing withouta name." There' s Man-man, who goes from running for public officeto staging his own crucifixion, and the dreaded Big Foot, the bullywith glass tear ducts. There' s the lovely Mrs. Hereira, in thrallto her monstrous husband. In this tender, funny early novel, V. S.Naipaul renders their lives (and the legends their neighborsconstruct around them) with Dickensian verve and Chekhoviancompassion.Set during World War II and narrated by an unnamed- butprecociously observant- neighborhood boy, Miguel Street is a workof mercurial mood shifts, by turns sweetly melancholy andanarchically funny. It overflows with life on every page.
When successful young Manhattan attorney Emily Haxby ends her happy relationship, just as her boyfriend is on the verge of proposing, she can’t explain to even her closest friends why she did it. As Emily contemplates whether she made a huge mistake, the rest of her world begins to unravel: she is assigned to a multimillion-dollar lawsuit where she must defend the very values she detests by a boss who can’t keep his hands to himself; her grandfather, a feisty octogenarian and the person she cares most about, is losing it, while her emotionally distant father has left her to cope with this alone; and her fading memories of her deceased mother continue to remind her that love doesn’t last forever. How this brave young heroine finally decides to take control of her life and face the fears that have long haunted her ,is the great achievement of Julie Buxbaum’s marvelous first novel. Written with the authority, grace, and wisdom of an author far beyond her years, The Opposite of Love heralds the debu
The Portrait of a Lady is the most stunning achievement ofHenry James's early period--in the 1860s and '70s when he wastransforming himself from a talented young American into a residentof Europe, a citizen of the world, and one of the greatestnovelists of modern times. A kind of delight at the success of thistransformation informs every page of this masterpiece. IsabelArcher, a beautiful, intelligent, and headstrong American girlnewly endowed with wealth and embarked in Europe on a treacherousjourney to self-knowledge, is delineated with a magnificence thatis at once casual and tense with force and insight. The characterswith whom she is entangled--the good man and the evil one, betweenwhom she wavers, and the mysterious witchlike woman with whom shemust do battle--are each rendered with a virtuosity that suggestsdazzling imaginative powers. And the scene painting--in England andItaly--provides a continuous visual pleasure while always remainingcrucial to the larger drama.
(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed) Though its fame as an icon oftwentieth-century literature rests primarily on the brilliance ofits narrative technique and the impressionistic beauty of itsprose, "To the Lighthouse "is above all the story of a quest, andas such it possesses a brave and magical universality. Observedacross the years at their vacation house facing the gales of theNorth Atlantic, Mrs. Ramsay and her family seek to recapturemeaning from the flux of things and the passage of time. Though itis the death of Mrs. Ramsay on which the novel turns, her presencepervades every page in a poetic evocation of loss and memory thatis also a celebration of domestic life and its most intimatedetails. Virginia Woolf's great book enacts a powerful allegory ofthe creative consciousness and its momentary triumphs over fleetingmaterial life.
From the Booker Prize-winning, bestselling author of Remains ofthe Day" "comes this stunning work of soaring imagination. Born inearly-twentieth-century Shanghai, Banks was orphaned at the age ofnine after the separate disappearances of his parents. Now, morethan twenty years later, he is a celebrated figure in Londonsociety; yet the investigative expertise that has garnered him famehas done little to illuminate the circumstances of his parents'alleged kidnappings. Banks travels to the seething, labyrinthinecity of his memory in hopes of solving the mystery of his own,painful past, only to find that war is ravaging Shanghai beyondrecognition-and that his own recollections are proving as difficultto trust as the people around him. Masterful, suspenseful andpsychologically acute, When We Were Orphans" "offers a profoundmeditation on the shifting quality of memory, and the possibilityof avenging one's past.
In a small Pennsylvania town in the late 1940s, schoolteacherGeorge Caldwell yearns to find some meaning in his life. Alone withhis teenage son for three days in a blizzard, Caldwell sees his songrow and change as he himself begins to lost touch with his life.Interwoven with the myth of Chiron, the noblest centaur, and hisown relationship to Prometheus, The Centaur one of John Updike'smost brilliant and unusual novels.
In this classic novel by John Updike, we return to a characteras compelling and timeless as Rabbit Angstrom: the inimitable HenryBech. Famous for his writer's block, Bech is a Jew adrift in aworld of Gentiles. As he roams from one adventure to the next, heviews life with a blend of wonder and cynicism that will make youlaugh with delight and wince in recognition.
From her humble beginnings as the daughter of a countrysideblacksmith, Emy Lyon went on to claim the undying love of navalhero Admiral Nelson, England’s most famous native son. She servedas model and muse to eighteenth-century Europe’s most renownedartists, and consorted with kings and queens at the royal court ofNaples. Yet she would end her life in disgraced exile, pennilessand alone. In this richly drawn portrait, Flora Fraser maps thespectacular rise and fall of legendary eighteenth-century beautyEmma, Lady Hamilton—as she came to be called—a woman of abundantaffection and overwhelming charm, whose eye for opportunity wasrivaled only by her propensity for overindulgence and scandal.Wonderfully intimate and lavishly detailed, Beloved Emma brings to life the incomparable Lady Hamilton and the politics,passions, and enchantments of her day.
Because of its frank treatment of human sexuality and itsunflinching fatalism, Jude the Obscure aroused such a stormof controversy upon its publication in 1895 that, partly inresponse, Thomas Hardy abandoned the art of novel-writingaltogether and devoted the rest of his life to poetry. Though wehave come a long way in our social attitudes in the ensuingcentury, nothing about Hardy's masterpiece has lost its power toshock us and disturb our dreams.
(Book Jacket Status: Not Jacketed) Introduction by JohnBayley
V. S. Naipaul’s legendary command of broad comedy and acutesocial observation is on abundant display in these classic works offiction–two novels and a collection of stories–that capture therhythms of life in the Caribbean and England with impressivesubtlety and humor. The Suffrage of Elvira is Naipaul’s hilarious take on anelectoral campaign in the back country of Trinidad, where thecandidates’ tactics include blatant vote-buying and supernaturalsabotage. The eponymous protagonist of Mr. Stone and the KnightsCompanion is an aging Englishman of ponderously regular habitswhose life is thrown into upheaval by a sudden marriage andunanticipated professional advancement. And the stories in AFlag on the Island take us from a Chinese bakery inTrinidad–whose black proprietor faces bankruptcy until he takes aChinese name–to a rooming house in London–where the genteellandlady plays a nasty Darwinian game with her budgerigars.Unfailingly stylish, filled with intelligence and feeling, here isthe wo
The Unconsoled is at once a gripping psychological mystery, awicked satire of the cult of art, and a poignant character study ofa man whose public life has accelerated beyond his control. Thesetting is a nameless Central European city where Ryder, a renownedpianist, has come to give the most important performance of hislife. Instead, he finds himself diverted on a series of cryptic andinfuriating errands that nevertheless provide him with vital cluesto his own past. In The Unconsoled Ishiguro creates a work that isitself a virtuoso performance, strange, haunting, and resonant withhumanity and wit. "A work of great interest and originality....Ishiguro has mapped out an aesthetic territory that is all hisown...frankly fantastic and] fiercer and funnier thanbefore."--"The New Yorker"
Edited with an Introduction by David Galloway.
