Robert Hellenga

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• 
  Blues Lessons
  

  by Robert Hellenga

  ISBN 0743225465 (0-7432-2546-5)
  Softcover, Simon & Schuster

  
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  Book summary:

  Growing up on his family's orchards in Appleton, Michigan, in the 1950s, Martin Dijksterhuis finds everything he needs in his extended family and in the land itself -- in the reassuring routines of growing and harvesting, spraying and pruning. Although his mother wants him to get out of Appleton, which she finds impossibly provincial, and attend a great university -- the University of Chicago, her alma mater -- he has no desire to leave.

  In the autumn of his junior year of high school, however, in the camp of the migrant workers who come north every year to pick the Dijksterhuis peaches and apples, Martin discovers his vocation, the country blues -- unsettling melodies that cry out from a place in the soul he never knew existed. He also falls in love with Corinna Williams, the strong-willed daughter of the black foreman who runs the Dijksterhuis orchards. His blues vocation and his love for Corinna are the two stories of his life. His struggle to combine them into a single story takes him a long way from home and from the life he had always envisioned for himself, and then it brings him back again in a way he could never have imagined.

  In this beautifully rendered novel, Robert Hellenga, author of "The Sixteen Pleasures" and "The Fall of a Sparrow," explores the fragility of happiness, the difficulties of following one's calling in life, and the sorrows and satisfactions of being a parent. [via]

  More editions of Blues Lessons:

  • Blues Lessons : A Novel: ISBN 0743225333 (0-7432-2533-3)
    Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
  • Blues Lessons: ISBN 0743225465 (0-7432-2546-5)
    Softcover, Simon & Schuster
• 
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  The Fall of a Sparrow: A Novel
  

  by Robert Hellenga

  ISBN 0140277048 (0-14-027704-8)
  Softcover, Penguin Books, Limited

  
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  More editions of The Fall of a Sparrow: A Novel:

  • The Fall of a Sparrow : A Novel: ISBN 0670881899 (0-670-88189-9)
    Hardcover, Penguin Books, Limited
  • The Fall of a Sparrow: A Novel: ISBN 0140277048 (0-14-027704-8)
    Softcover, Penguin Books, Limited
• 
  The Fall of a Sparrow
  

  by Robert Hellenga

  ISBN 0684850273 (0-684-85027-3)
  Softcover, Scribner

  
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  More editions of The Fall of a Sparrow:

  • The Fall of a Sparrow: ISBN 0684850265 (0-684-85026-5)
    Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
  • The Fall of a Sparrow: ISBN 0684850273 (0-684-85027-3)
    Softcover, Scribner
• 
  via
  The Italian Lover
  

  by Robert Hellenga

  ISBN 0316117633 (0-316-11763-3)
  Hardcover, Little Brown & Co

  
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  Book summary:

  An exhilarating novel of romance, art, and food in Florence, featuring the beloved Margot Harrington, who graced Robert Hellenga's The Sixteen Pleasures. Margot Harrington's memoir about her discovery in Florence of a priceless masterwork of Renaissance erotica - and the misguided love affair it inspired - is now, 25 years later, being made into a movie. Margot, with the help of her lover, Woody, writes a script that she thinks will validate her life. Of course their script is not used, but never mind - happy endings are the best endings for movies, as Margot eventually comes to see. At the former convent in Florence where "The Sixteen Pleasures" - now called "The Italian Lover," - is being filmed, Margot enters into a drama she never imagined, where her ideas of home, love, art, and aging collide with the imperatives of commerce and the unknowability of other cultures and other people. [via]

  More editions of The Italian Lover:

  • The Italian Lover: ISBN 0316117633 (0-316-11763-3)
    Hardcover, Little Brown & Co
• 
  Philosophy Made Simple
  

  by Robert Hellenga

  ISBN 031601334X (0-316-01334-X)
  Softcover, Little Brown & Co

  
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  More editions of Philosophy Made Simple:

  • Philosophy Made Simple: ISBN 0316013803 (0-316-01380-3)
    Softcover, Little, Brown
  • Philosophy Made Simple: ISBN 0316058262 (0-316-05826-2)
    Hardcover, Little Brown & Co
  • Philosophy Made Simple: ISBN 0786288442 (0-7862-8844-2)
    Hardcover, Thorndike Pr
  • Philosophy Made Simple: ISBN 031601334X (0-316-01334-X)
    Softcover, Little Brown & Co
• 
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  The Sixteen Pleasures
  

  by Robert Hellenga

  ISBN 1569470065 (1-56947-006-5)
  Hardcover, Soho Pr Inc

  
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  Book summary:

  In 1966, 29-year-old Margot Harrington heads off to Florence, intent on doing her bit to protect its precious books from the great floods--and equally intent on adventure. Serendipity, in the shape of the man she'll fall in love with, leads her to an abbey run by the most knowing of abbesses and work on its library begins. One day a nun comes upon a shockingly pornographic volume, bound with a prayer book. It turns out to be Aretino's lost erotic sonnets, accompanied by some rather anatomical engravings. Since the pope had ordered all copies of the Sixteen Pleasures burned, it could be worth a fortune and keep the convent autonomous. The abbess asks Margot to take care of the book and check into its worth: "We have to be cunning as serpents and innocent as doves," she warns.

  Soon our heroine finds her identity increasingly "tangled up" with the volume and with Dottor Postiglione, a man with an instinct for happiness--but also one for self-preservation. Margot enjoys the secrecy and the craft (the chapters in which she rebinds the folios are among the book's finest). Much of the book's pleasure stems from Robert Hellenga's easy knowledge, which extends to Italian complexities. Where else would you learn that, in cases of impotence, legal depositions are insufficient: "Modern couples often take the precaution of sending postcards to each other from the time of their engagement, leaving the message space blank so that it can be filled in later if the couple wishes to establish grounds for an annulment." Luckily, however, there are also shops that sell old postcards, "along with the appropriate writing instruments and inks."

  Though The Sixteen Pleasures is initially in the tradition of American innocent goes abroad to encounter European experience, Hellenga's depth (and lightness) of characterization and description lift it high above its genre. And what better book than one about loving and loving books? [via]

  More editions of The Sixteen Pleasures:

  • The Sixteen Pleasures: ISBN 0385314698 (0-385-31469-8)
    Softcover, Bantam Dell Pub Group
  • The Sixteen Pleasures: ISBN 0340618191 (0-340-61819-1)
    Softcover, Hodder General Publishing Division
  • The Sixteen Pleasures: ISBN 0340633344 (0-340-63334-4)
    Softcover, Hodder General Publishing Division
  • The Sixteen Pleasures: ISBN 0340618183 (0-340-61818-3)
    Hardcover, Hodder General Publishing Division
  • The Sixteen Pleasures: ISBN 1569470065 (1-56947-006-5)
    Hardcover, Soho Pr Inc

German

• 
  via
  Die Zeit der Apfelblüte
  

  by Robert Hellenga

  ISBN 3442453720 (3-442-45372-0)
  Softcover

  
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  More editions of Die Zeit der Apfelblüte:

  • Die Zeit der Apfelblüte: ISBN 3442453720 (3-442-45372-0)
    Softcover