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books tagged “alcoholism”
books tagged “alcoholism”
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4 Playsby William IngeISBN 039417075X (0-394-17075-X)
Hardcover
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› Find signed collectible books: '4 Plays'Book summary:Four Plays: Come Back, Little Sheba / Picnic / Bus Stop / The Dark at the top of the Stairs (Paperback) by William Inge [via]
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The Adventures of Huckleberry Finnby Mark Twain, George SaundersISBN 0375757376 (0-375-75737-6)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'Book summary:This perennially popular Norton Critical Edition reprints for the first time the definitive Iowa-California text of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, complete with all original illustrations by Edward Windsor Kemble and John Harley. The text is accompanied by explanatory annotations.
"Contexts and Sources" provides readers with a rich selection of documents related to the historical background, language, composition, sale, reception, and newly discovered first half of the manuscript of Mark Twain's greatest work. Included are letters on the writing of the novel, excerpts from the author's autobiography, samples of bad poetry that inspired his satire (including an effort by young Sam Clemens himself), a section on the censorship of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by schools and libraries over a hundred-year period, and commentary by David Carkeet on dialects of the book and by Earl F. Briden on its "racist" illustrations. In addition, this section reprints the full texts of both "Sociable Jimmy," upon which is based the controversial theory that Huck speaks in a "black voice," and "A True Story, Repeated Word for Word As I Heard It," the first significant attempt by Mark Twain to capture the speech of an African American in print.
"Criticism" of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is divided into "Early Responses" (including the first negative review) and "Modern Views" by Victor A. Doyno, T. S. Eliot, Jane Smiley, David L. Smith, Shelley Fisher Fishkin (the "black voice" thesis), James R. Kincaid (a rebuttal of Fishkin), and David R. Sewell. Also included is Toni Morrison's moving personal "Introduction" to the troubling experience of reading and re-reading Mark Twain's masterpiece.
A Chronology and Selected Bibliography are also included. [via]More editions of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn:
- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: ISBN 0393966402 (0-393-96640-2)
Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc - The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: ISBN 039598078X (0-395-98078-X)
Softcover, Houghton Mifflin College Div - The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: ISBN 0393091465 (0-393-09146-5)
Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc - The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: ISBN 0395051142 (0-395-05114-2)
Softcover, Houghton Mifflin College Div - The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: ISBN 0375757376 (0-375-75737-6)
Softcover, Random House Inc
- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: ISBN 0393966402 (0-393-96640-2)
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finnby Sculley Bradley, Mark Twain, E. Hudson Long, Thomas Cooley, Richmond Croom BeattyISBN 0393044548 (0-393-04454-8)
Softcover, Norton
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The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Tom Sawyer's Comrade)by Mark Twain, E.W. KembleISBN 0394605217 (0-394-60521-7)
Hardcover, Modern Library
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Tom Sawyer's Comrade)'Book summary:A seminal work of American Literature that still commands deep praise and still elicits controversy, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is essential to the understanding of the American soul. The recent discovery of the first half of Twain's manuscript, long thought lost, made front-page news. And this unprecedented edition, which contains for the first time omitted episodes and other variations present in the first half of the handwritten manuscript, as well as facsimile reproductions of thirty manuscript pages, is indispensable to a full understanding of the novel. The changes, deletions, and additions made in the first half of the manuscript indicate that Mark Twain frequently checked his impulse to write an even darker, more confrontational book than the one he finally published. [via]
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Alcoholism and Women Genetics and Fetal Developmentby William J. Haugen LightISBN 0398053995 (0-398-05399-5)
Hardcover, Charles C Thomas Pub Ltd
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Alcoholism in Minority Populationsby Thomas D. Watts, Roosevelt WrightISBN 0398055416 (0-398-05541-6)
Hardcover, Charles C Thomas Pub Ltd
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Anger, Alcoholism, and Addiction: Treating Individuals, Couples, and Familiesby Ronald T. Potter-Efron, Patricia S. Potter-EfronISBN 0393701263 (0-393-70126-3)
Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
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The Annotated Huckleberry Finnby Mark Twain, Michael Patrick HearnISBN 0393020398 (0-393-02039-8)
Hardcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Annotated Huckleberry Finn'Book summary:A seminal work of American Literature that still commands deep praise and still elicits controversy, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is essential to the understanding of the American soul. The recent discovery of the first half of Twain's manuscript, long thought lost, made front-page news. And this unprecedented edition, which contains for the first time omitted episodes and other variations present in the first half of the handwritten manuscript, as well as facsimile reproductions of thirty manuscript pages, is indispensable to a full understanding of the novel. The changes, deletions, and additions made in the first half of the manuscript indicate that Mark Twain frequently checked his impulse to write an even darker, more confrontational book than the one he finally published. [via]
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Appointment in Samarraby John O'HaraISBN 0375719202 (0-375-71920-2)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Appointment in Samarra'Book summary:A twentieth-century classic, Appointment in Samarra is the first and most widely read book by the writer Fran Leibowitz called the real F. Scott Fitzgerald.
In December 1930, just before Christmas, the Gibbsville social circuit is electrified with parties and dances, where the music plays late into the night and the liquor flows freely. At the center of the social elite stand Julian and Caroline Englishthe envy of friends and strangers alike. But in one rash moment born inside a highball glass, Julian breaks with polite society and begins a rapid descent toward self-destruction. Appointment in Samarra brilliantly captures the personal politics and easy bitterness of small-town life. It is John OHaras crowning achievement, and a lasting testament to the keen social intelligence of a major American novelist. [via]More editions of Appointment in Samarra:
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The Beautiful and Damnedby F. Scott Fitzgerald, Hortense CalisherISBN 0375759646 (0-375-75964-6)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Beautiful and Damned'Book summary:Introduction by Hortense Calisher
[via]
Commentary by Edmund Wilson, Henry Seidel Canby, and Arthur Mizener
Fitzgeralds second novel, a devastating portrait of the excesses of the Jazz Age, is a largely autobiographical depiction of a glamorous, reckless Manhattan couple and their spectacular spiral into tragedy. Published on the heels of This Side of Paradise, the story of the Harvard-educated aesthete Anthony Patch and his willful wife, Gloria, is propelled by Fitzgeralds intense romantic imagination and demonstrates an increased technical and emotional maturity. The Beautiful and Damned is at once a gripping morality tale, a rueful meditation on love, marriage, and money, and an acute social document. As Hortense Calisher observes in her Introduction, Though Fitzgerald can entrance with stories so joyfully youthful they appear to be safewhen he cuts himself, you will bleed.
Includes a Modern Library Reading Group GuideMore editions of The Beautiful and Damned:
The Blue Bowlby George MinotISBN 039457348X (0-394-57348-X)
Hardcover, Knopf Publishing Group
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Breakthrough: What to Do When Alcoholism or Chemical Dependency Hits Close to Homeby Ruth MaxwellISBN 0345319567 (0-345-31956-7)
Hardcover, Ballantine Books
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Cathedralby Raymond CarverISBN 0394712811 (0-394-71281-1)
Softcover, Vintage Books
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Cost-Effective Alternatives in Alcoholism Treatmentby Richard L. GreenstreetISBN 0398054681 (0-398-05468-1)
Hardcover, Charles C Thomas Pub Ltd
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Crime and Punishmentby Fyodor Dostoevsky, George GibianISBN 0393956237 (0-393-95623-7)
Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Crime and Punishment'Book summary:A Norton Critical Edition with the novel, letters from Dostoevsky and a collection of critical essays. [via]
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- Crime and Punishment: ISBN 0393092925 (0-393-09292-5)
Softcover, Norton - Crime and Punishment: ISBN 0394707214 (0-394-70721-4)
Softcover, Random House Inc - Crime and Punishment: ISBN 0393055345 (0-393-05534-5)
Hardcover, Norton - Crime and Punishment: ISBN 0394604504 (0-394-60450-4)
Hardcover, Random House Inc - Crime and Punishment: ISBN 0393956237 (0-393-95623-7)
Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
- Crime and Punishment: ISBN 0393092925 (0-393-09292-5)
Daisy Fay And The Miracle Manby Fannie FlaggISBN 0345485602 (0-345-48560-2)
Softcover, Ballantine Books
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Darkness Visible : A Memoir of Madnessby William StyronISBN 0394588886 (0-394-58888-6)
Hardcover, Random House Publishing Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Darkness Visible : A Memoir of Madness'Book summary:In 1985 William Styron fell victim to a crippling and almost suicidal depression, the same illness that took the lives of Randall Jarrell, Primo Levi and Virginia Woolf. That Styron survived his descent into madness is something of a miracle. That he manages to convey its tortuous progression and his eventual recovery with such candor and precision makes Darkness Visible a rare feat of literature, a book that will arouse a shock of recognition even in those readers who have been spared the suffering it describes. [via]
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Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hydeby Robert Louis StevensonISBN 0394847199 (0-394-84719-9)
Softcover, Pendulum Pr
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The Dream Songsby John BerrymanISBN 0374516707 (0-374-51670-7)
Softcover, Farrar, Straus & Giroux
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Dream Songs'Book summary:This edition combines 77 Dream Songs, awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1965, and His Toy, His Dream, His Rest, which won the National Book Award for Poetry in 1969. It contains 385 songs, an index of first lines, an index of titles, and a note by the author.[via]
In his essay on the work, Denis Donoghue says: "John Berryman has now completed the long poem, The Dream Songs, begun in 1955 . . . The poet resolved it [the problem of a long poem] in his own way; not Eliot's way in Four Quartets, Williams's way in Paterson, Pound's way in the Cantos, or Hart Crane's way in The Bridge . . . Mr. Berryman's answer was to conceive a diary, a dream diary."
"A major achievement," writes A. Alvarez in The Observer. "He has written an elegy on his brilliant generation and, in the process, he has also written an elegy on himself."
Of the hero of The Dream Songs, James Schevill has written: "The character of Henry is a permanent addition to American literature."More editions of The Dream Songs:
The Dream Songsby W.S. Merwin, John BerrymanISBN 0374530661 (0-374-53066-1)
Softcover, Farrar Straus & Giroux
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Eight Million Ways to Dieby Lawrence BlockISBN 0380715732 (0-380-71573-2)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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Families Under the Influence: Changing Alcoholic Patternsby Michael ElkinISBN 0393306704 (0-393-30670-4)
Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
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A Fan's Notesby ExleyISBN 0394729153 (0-394-72915-3)
Softcover, Vintage Books
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The Feast of All Saintsby Anne RiceISBN 0345334531 (0-345-33453-1)
Softcover, Ballantine Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Feast of All Saints'Book summary:Before the Civil War, there lived in Louisiana, people unique in Southern history. For though they were descended from African slaves, they were also descended from the French and Spanish who enslaved them. In this dazzling historical novel, Anne Rice chronicles four of these so-called Free People of Color--men and women caught periolously between the worlds of master and slave, privilege and oppression, passion and pain.
"Anne Rice seems to be at home everywhere....She makes us believe everything she sees."
THE NEW YORK TIMES [via]More editions of The Feast of All Saints:
Harley, Like a Personby Cat BauerISBN 0375837353 (0-375-83735-3)
Softcover, Random House Childrens Books
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Heartthrobby Suzanne BrockmannISBN 034546608X (0-345-46608-X)
Softcover, Random House Publishing Group
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Here's Your Hat What's Your Hurryby Elizabeth McCrackenISBN 0380730790 (0-380-73079-0)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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House of Sand and Fogby Andre DubusISBN 0375727345 (0-375-72734-5)
Softcover, Bantam Dell Pub Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'House of Sand and Fog'Book summary:Andre Dubus III wastes no time in capturing the dark side of the immigrant experience in America at the end of the 20th century. House of Sand and Fog opens with a highway crew composed of several nationalities picking up litter on a hot California summer day. Massoud Amir Behrani, a former colonel in the Iranian military under the Shah, reflects on his job-search efforts since arriving in the U.S. four years before: "I have spent hundreds of dollars copying my credentials; I have worn my French suits and my Italian shoes to hand-deliver my qualifications; I have waited and then called back after the correct waiting time; but there is nothing." The father of two, Behrani has spent most of the money he brought with him from Iran on an apartment and furnishings that are too expensive, desperately trying to keep up appearances in order to enhance his daughter's chances of making a good marriage. Now the daughter is married, and on impulse he sinks his remaining funds into a house he buys at auction, thus unwittingly putting himself and his family on a trajectory to disaster. The house, it seems, once belonged to Kathy Nicolo, a self-destructive alcoholic who wants it back. What starts out as a legal tussle soon escalates into a personal confrontation--with dire results.
Dubus tells his tragic tale from the viewpoints of the two main adversaries, Behrani and Kathy. To both of them, the house represents something more than just a place to live. For the colonel, it is a foot in the door of the American dream; for Kathy, a reminder of a kinder, gentler past. In prose that is simple yet evocative, House of Sand and Fog builds to its inevitable denouement, one that is painfully dark but unfailingly honest. --Alix Wilber [via]
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Huckleberry Finn / Adventures of Huckleberry Finnby Mark TwainISBN 0394847245 (0-394-84724-5)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Huckleberry Finn / Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'Book summary:A seminal work of American Literature that still commands deep praise and still elicits controversy, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is essential to the understanding of the American soul. The recent discovery of the first half of Twain's manuscript, long thought lost, made front-page news. And this unprecedented edition, which contains for the first time omitted episodes and other variations present in the first half of the handwritten manuscript, as well as facsimile reproductions of thirty manuscript pages, is indispensable to a full understanding of the novel. The changes, deletions, and additions made in the first half of the manuscript indicate that Mark Twain frequently checked his impulse to write an even darker, more confrontational book than the one he finally published. [via]
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In-Patient Treatment for Alcoholism: A Multi-Centre Evaluation Studyby Heinrich Kufner, Wilhelm FeuerleinISBN 0387506985 (0-387-50698-5)
Hardcover, Springer Verlag
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Infinite Jestby David Foster WallaceISBN 0316920045 (0-316-92004-5)
Hardcover, Little Brown & Co
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Infinite Jest'Book summary:In a sprawling, wild, super-hyped magnum opus, David Foster Wallace fulfills the promise of his precocious novel The Broom of the System. Equal parts philosophical quest and screwball comedy, Infinite Jest bends every rule of fiction, features a huge cast and multilevel narrative, and questions essential elements of American culture - our entertainments, our addictions, our relationships, our pleasures, our abilities to define ourselves. [via]
Is Alcoholism Hereditaryby Donald W. GoodwinISBN 0345348214 (0-345-34821-4)
Softcover, Ballantine Books
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Joey Pigza Loses Controlby Jack GantosISBN 0374399891 (0-374-39989-1)
Hardcover, Farrar Straus & Giroux
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The Last Safe Place on Earthby Richard PeckISBN 0385320523 (0-385-32052-3)
Hardcover, Random House Children's Books
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The Late Great Meby Sandra ScoppettoneISBN 0399116206 (0-399-11620-6)
Hardcover, Putnam Pub Group
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Laughing Boyby Oliver LA FargeISBN 0395083834 (0-395-08383-4)
Softcover, Houghton Mifflin
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Le Testament / the Testamentby John GrishamISBN 0385339585 (0-385-33958-5)
Softcover, Delta
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Le Testament / the Testament'Book summary:Troy Phelan, a 78-year-old eccentric and the 10th-richest man in America, is about to read his last will and testament, divvying up an estate worth $11 billion. Phelan's three ex-wives, their grasping spawn, a legion of lawyers, several psychiatrists, and a plethora of sound technicians wait breathlessly, all eyes glued to digital monitors as they watch the old man read his verdict. But Phelan shocks everyone with a bizarre, last-gasp attempt to redistribute the spoils, setting in motion a legal morality tale of a contested will, sin, and redemption.
Our hero, Nate O'Riley--a washed-up, alcoholic litigator with two ruined marriages in his wake and the IRS on his tail--is dispatched to the Brazilian wetlands in search of a mysterious heir named in the will. After a harrowing trip upriver to a remote settlement in the Pantanal, he encounters Rachel Lane, a pure-hearted missionary living with an indigenous tribe and carrying out "God's work." Rachel's grave dedication and kindness impress the jaded lawyer, so much that a nasty bout of dengue fever leads him to a vision that could change his life.
Back in the States, the legal proceedings drag on and Grisham has a high time with Phelan's money-hungry descendents, a regrettable bunch who squandered millions, married strippers, got druggy, and befriended the Mob. The youngest son, Ramble, is a multi-pierced, tattoo-covered malcontent with big dreams for his rock band, the Demon Monkeys. Will Nate get straight with Rachel's aid? Do the greedy heirs get theirs? What's the real legacy of a lifetime's work? The Testament is classic Grisham: a down-and-out lawyer, a lot of money, an action-packed pursuit, and the highest issues at stake. It's not just about great characters; it's about the question of what character is. --Rebekah Warren [via]
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Lie down in Darknessby William StyronISBN 0394506596 (0-394-50659-6)
Hardcover, Random House Publishing Group
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The Limits of Justiceby John M. WilsonISBN 0385491174 (0-385-49117-4)
Hardcover, Bantam Dell Pub Group
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Lucky Manby Michael J. FoxISBN 0375431411 (0-375-43141-1)
Hardcover, Random House Large Print
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Lucky Man'Book summary:The same sharp intelligence and self-deprecating wit that made Michael J. Fox a star in the Family Ties TV series and Back to the Future make this a lot punchier than the usual up-from-illness celebrity memoir. Yes, he begins with the first symptoms of Parkinson's disease, the incurable illness that led to his retirement from Spin City (and acting) in 2000. And yes, he assures us he is a better, happier person now than he was before he was diagnosed. In Fox's case, you actually might believe it, because he then cheerfully exposes the insecurities and self-indulgences of his pre-Parkinson's life in a manner that makes them not glamorous but wincingly ordinary and of course very funny. ("As for the question, 'Does it bother you that maybe she just wants to sleep with you because you're a celebrity?' My answer to that one was, 'Ah...nope.'") With a working-class Canadian background, Fox has an unusually detached perspective on the madness of mass-media fame; his description of the tabloid feeding frenzy surrounding his 1988 wedding to Tracy Pollan, for example, manages to be both acid and matter-of-fact. He is frank but not maudlin about his drinking problem, and he refreshingly notes that getting sober did not automatically solve all his other problems. This readable, witty autobiography reminds you why it was generally a pleasure to watch Fox onscreen: he's a nice guy with an edge, and you don't have to feel embarrassed about liking him. --Wendy Smith [via]
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Lucy the Giantby Sherri L. SmithISBN 0385729405 (0-385-72940-5)
Hardcover, Random House Children's Books
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Lunar Parkby Bret Easton EllisISBN 0375727272 (0-375-72727-2)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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Book Description:
Imagine becoming a bestselling novelist, and almost immediately famous and wealthy, while still in college, and before long seeing your insufferable father reduced to a bag of ashes in a safety-deposit box, while after American Psycho your celebrity drowns in a sea of vilification, booze, and drugs.Then imagine having a second chance ten years later, as the Bret Easton Ellis of this remarkable novel is given, with a wife, children, and suburban sobriety--only to watch this new life shatter beyond recognition in a matter of days. At a fateful Halloween party he glimpses a disturbing (fictional) character driving a car identical to his late father's, his stepdaughter's doll violently "malfunctions," and their house undergoes bizarre transformations both within and without. Connecting these aberrations to graver events--a series of grotesque murders that no longer seem random and the epidemic disappearance of boys his sons age--Ellis struggles to defend his family against this escalating menace even as his wife, their therapists, and the police insist that his apprehensions are rooted instead in substance abuse and egomania.
Lunar Park confounds one expectation after another, passing through comedy and mounting horror, both psychological and supernatural, toward an astonishing resolution--about love and loss, fathers and sons--in what is surely the most powerfully original and deeply moving novel of an extraordinary career.
A Tale of Two Brets: An Amazon.com Interview with Bret Easton Ellis
In his novel Lunar Park, Bret Easton Ellis takes first-person narrative to an extreme, inserting himself (and a host of real characters from the publishing world) into the haunting story of a drugged-out famous writer living in the suburbs trying to reconnect with his wife and son and reconcile his damaged past. Ellis is at the top of his game in Lunar Park, his first novel since 1999's Glamorama, delivering a disturbing and delirious novel about celebrity, writers, and fathers and sons (not to mention a cameo from notorious Ellis creation, Patrick Bateman). Amazon.com senior editor Brad Thomas Parsons spoke with Ellis in a Seattle to Los Angeles phone call to talk about the fact and fiction behind Lunar Park, New York versus LA, '80s music, and the whole "American Psycho thing."
Read the Amazon.com interview with Bret Easton EllisLess Than Zero (1985)
Published when Ellis was a junior at Bennington, Less Than Zero is the mesmerizing first-person chronicle of Clay, our laconic, zoned-out guide to a subculture of over-privileged nihilism in early '80s Los Angeles. He travels back home from Camden College (a thinly veiled Bennington) for Christmas break and re-enters his circle of jaded friends--including his ex-girlfriend Blair, and his best friend Julian, who's now hustling to support his drug habit--and a parade of Porches, late-night parties, cocaine, and casual destruction.Ellis on Ellis: "I don't think it's a perfect book by any means, but it's valid. I get where it comes from. I get what it is. There's a lot of it that I wish was slightly more elegantly written. Overall, I was pretty shocked. It was pretty good writing for someone who was 19."
The Rules of Attraction (1987)
A line-up of Camden College students share the narrating duties in The Rules of Attraction, Ellis' sex-fueled, drug-baked second novel. There's Lauren (who's in the midst of losing her virginity as the book opens), who longs for her boyfriend Victor, currently traveling through Europe; Lauren's ex, Paul, a bisexual party boy who hooks up with hard-drinking closet-case Sean (surname Bateman--that's right, younger brother of Patrick), who also has the hots for Lauren. Less than Zero's Clay makes a cameo appearance as well as a passing glimpse of Ellis' Bennington classmate Donna Tartt's murderous Classics majors from The Secret History. Ellis on Ellis: "It might be my favorite book of mine. I was writing that book while I was at college. Sort of like the best of times, the worst of times. There was a lot of elation, there was a lot of despair. It was just a really fun book to write. I loved mimicking all the different voices. The stream of conscious does get a little out of hand. I kind of like that about the book. It's kind of all over the place. It's casual. It's scruffy. That's the one book of mine that I have a very, very soft spot for."
American Psycho (1991)
Shopaholic sociopath Patrick Bateman's killer grip drags readers into a bloody, brand-name, urban nightmare as the 26-year-old Wall Street yuppie executes his grooming habits and eviscerates strangers with equal élan. Simon & Schuster dropped the too-hot-to-handle American Psycho which was then published as a paperback original by Vintage Books. Ellis received death threats while the book was boycotted, sliced up by reviewers, and went on to become a bestseller. Mary Harron's 2000 film version starred then little-known British actor Christian Bale, who would later suit up as the Dark Knight in 2005's Batman Begins. Ellis on Ellis: "It was good. It was fun. It was not nearly as pretentious as I remember I wanted it to be when I was writing it. I found it really fast-moving. I found it really funny. And I liked it a lot. The violence was... it made my toes curl. I really freaked out. I couldn't believe how violent it was. It was truly upsetting. I had to steel myself to re-read those passages."
The Informers (1994)
Ellis returns to early '80s Los Angeles ennui with The Informers, a loosely connected collection of stories of the bored, rich, and morally depraved, written around the same time as Less than Zero. Sex, drugs, and gratuitous violence take center stage, with characters including an aging, predatory anchorwoman, a debauched rock star tearing through Japan, and a pick-up artist vampire. While some of the vignettes echo better Ellis works, ultimately the stories don't add to much as a whole. Book critics are less than receptive to Ellis' post-American Psycho offering. Ellis on Ellis: "Those were written while I was at Bennington. I wrote a lot of short stories between 1981 or 1982 or so... The Informers more or less kind of represented probably the best of those stories. I wrote a lot of really bad ones, but those are the ones that worked the best together."
Glamorama (1999)
Actor-model Victor Ward (who first made an appearance in the Ellis oeuvre in The Rules of Attraction) is the narrator of Glamorama, Ellis longest novel yet. Ellis offers bold-faced names and celebrity skewering in the first half of the book as Victor tries to open a Manhattan club while cheating on his supermodel girlfriend and double-crossing his partner, but the second half takes a violent, paranoid turn as Victor is sent to England and unwittingly lured into a sadistic ring of international terrorists (posing as supermodels) leaving a bloody trail across the globe. Ellis on Ellis: "[T]he book wasn't necessarily about terrorism to me. It was about a whole bunch of other stuff. It's definitely the book that I can tell--I don't know if other people can tell but I can tell as a writer--is probably the most divisive that I've written. It has an equal number of detractors as it does fans. It doesn't really hold true with the other books. It was the one that took the longest to write, and the one that seemed the most important at the time. It's an unwieldy book... I like it."
Ellis on DVD
Less Than Zero
American Psycho
The Rules of AttractionWill the Real Bret Easton Ellis Please Stand Up?
Visit the author's Web site at www.2brets.com.
Mean Seasonby Heather CochranISBN 037325069X (0-373-25069-X)
Softcover, Harlequin Enterprises, Limited
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Mickelsson's Ghostsby John GardnerISBN 0394729382 (0-394-72938-2)
Softcover, Vintage Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Mickelsson's Ghosts: A Novel'Book summary:The critically acclaimed final masterwork of John Gardner: an American novel haunted with macabre and cerebral elements.
The final novel by John Gardner, Mickelsson's Ghosts, originally published in 1982 just months before his untimely death in a motorcycle accident, is a tour de force. The protagonist Peter Mickelsson, a former star philosophy professor at Brown, relocates to Binghamton University. On the verge of bankruptcy, separated from his wife, in questionable mental health, and drinking heavily, Mickelsson decides to buy a country house in northeastern Pennsylvania. What he encounters there are impassioned and shameless love affairs (one of which results in a regrettable pregnancy), a Mormon extremist cult, small town mythologies, the robbery of a robber, multiple murders, the ghosts of an incestuous family, Plato, and our hero's own possible insanity. [via]Monkeysby Susan MinotISBN 0375708367 (0-375-70836-7)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Monkeys'Book summary:NATIONAL BESTSELLER In this luminous story of family life--the first novel by Susan Minot, author of the highly acclaimed Evening --the seven Vincent children follow their Catholic mother to Mass and spend Thanksgiving with their father's aging parents who come from a world of New England priviledge. As they grow older, they meet with the perplexing lives of adults. Susan Minot writes with delicacy and a tremendous gift for the details that decorate domestic life, and when tragedy strikes she beautifully mines the children's tenderness for each other, and their aching guardianship of what they have. [via]
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Mothers and Sonsby Colm ToibinISBN 0330441825 (0-330-44182-5)
Hardcover, Picador
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Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlistby David Levithan, Rachel CohnISBN 0375835318 (0-375-83531-8)
Hardcover, Random House Childrens Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Nick And Norah's Infinite Playlist'Book summary:It all starts when Nick asks Norah to be his girlfriend for five minutes. He only needs five minutes to avoid his ex-girlfriend, whos just walked in to his bands show. With a new guy. And then, with one kiss, Nick and Norah are off on an adventure set against the backdrop of New York Cityand smack in the middle of all the joy, anxiety, confusion, and excitement of a first date.
This he said/she said romance told by YA stars Rachel Cohn and David Levithan is a sexy, funny roller coaster of a story about one date over one very long night, with two teenagers, both recovering from broken hearts, who are just trying to figure out who they want to beand where the next great band is playing.
Told in alternating chapters, teeming with music references, humor, angst, and endearing side characters, this is a love story youll wish were your very own. Working together for the first time, Rachel Cohn and David Levithan have combined forces to create a book that is sure to grab readers of all ages and never let them go.
From the Hardcover edition. [via]No Great Mischiefby Alistair MacLeodISBN 0375726659 (0-375-72665-9)
Softcover, Vintage Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'No Great Mischief'Book summary:For the MacDonalds, the past is not a foreign country. This Cape Breton clan may have lived in the New World since 1779, when Calum Ruadh ("the red Calum") and his wife, 12 children, and dog landed. Scotland, however, remains their true home. So profound is their connection to their lost land that on brief visits they find themselves welcomed by strangers. When one descendent tells a Scotswoman that she's from Canada, she is offered a gentle rejoinder: "That may be.... But you are really from here. You have just been away for a while." In some ways this is unsurprising, since the MacDonalds either have deep black hair or their ancestor's coloring. And those with the latter have "eyes that were so dark as to be beyond brown and almost in the region of glowing black. Such individuals would manifest themselves as strikingly unfamiliar to some, and as eerily familiar to others." Another sport of nature? Many are fraternal twins, including Alistair MacLeod's narrator, Alexander, and his sister.
But No Great Mischief is far more than the straightforward saga of one family over the generations. Instead the author has created a painfully beautiful myth in which the long-ago is in many ways more present than modern existence. Even in the last decades of the 20th century, the MacDonalds fall into Gaelic--its inflections, rhythms, and song--with deep nostalgia. This is a family that is used to composing itself in the face of disaster. They often assure one another, "My hope is constant in thee," and in the light of their many losses, the clan must cling to its motto.
No Great Mischief begins with Alexander's visit to Toronto, where his eldest brother now subsists on a diet of drink and memories. The narrator, a successful orthodontist, doesn't have much to do with the former but is unable (or unwilling) to escape the latter. As the novel proceeds, Alexander fills in his family history, including such key episodes as his great-great-grandfather's self-exile from Scotland. Though Calum Ruadh had intended to leave his dog behind, it broke away and tried to catch up with him. MacLeod piercingly captures the animal's struggle as her master first tries to make her head for shore and then--realizing she won't desert him--spurs her on. Throughout No Great Mischief various people recall this incident, an emblem of intensity, hope, and dependence. A descendant of the bitch is also on hand when Alexander's parents and one of his brothers disappear under the ice on a cold spring night. She persists in searching for her people and tries to protect their lighthouse from the new keeper, receiving in return "four bullets into her loyal waiting heart." When Alexander's grandfather hears of her death, he uses a phrase that becomes one of the book's litanies, "It was in those dogs to care too much and to try too hard."
This is a MacDonald characteristic as well. A good deal of No Great Mischief's strength stems from scenes of longing and despair--for those who die for a lost cause, whether in 1692 when one leader is killed ("the redness of his hair dyed forever brighter by the crimson of his blood") or in an Ontario uranium mine where one brother is decapitated. MacLeod evokes his clan, and the elemental beauty of their landscape, in quiet, precise language that gains power with each repetition. (A sentence such as "All of us are better when we're loved" comes to acquire a near proverbial ring.) If he occasionally tips his hand too much, pressing home his point that present-day prosperity isn't all it's cracked up to be, no matter. I doubt that this inspired and elegiac novel will ever leave those who are lucky enough to read it--proving after all the persistence of the clann Chalum Ruaidh. --Kerry Fried [via]
Peter Camenzindby Hermann HesseISBN 0374507848 (0-374-50784-8)
Softcover, Farrar Straus & Giroux
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Pissing in the Snow and Other Ozark Folktalesby Vance RandolphISBN 0380017970 (0-380-01797-0)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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Reviving Ophelia : Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girlsby Mary PipherISBN 0345392825 (0-345-39282-5)
Softcover, Random House Publishing Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Reviving Ophelia : Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls'Book summary:At adolescence, says Mary Pipher, "girls become 'female impersonators' who fit their whole selves into small, crowded spaces." Many lose spark, interest, and even IQ points as a "girl-poisoning" society forces a choice between being shunned for staying true to oneself and struggling to stay within a narrow definition of female. Pipher's alarming tales of a generation swamped by pain may be partly informed by her role as a therapist who sees troubled children and teens, but her sketch of a tougher, more menacing world for girls often hits the mark. She offers some prescriptions for changing society and helping girls resist. [via]
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Revolutionary Roadby Richard YatesISBN 0375708448 (0-375-70844-8)
Softcover, Vintage Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Revolutionary Road'Book summary:The rediscovery and rejuvenation of Richard Yates's 1961 novel Revolutionary Road is due in large part to its continuing emotional and moral resonance for an early 21st-century readership. April and Frank Wheeler are a young, ostensibly thriving couple living with their two children in a prosperous Connecticut suburb in the mid-1950s. However, like the characters in John Updike's similarly themed Couples, the self-assured exterior masks a creeping frustration at their inability to feel fulfilled in their relationships or careers. Frank is mired in a well-paying but boring office job and April is a housewife still mourning the demise of her hoped-for acting career. Determined to identify themselves as superior to the mediocre sprawl of suburbanites who surround them, they decide to move to France where they will be better able to develop their true artistic sensibilities, free of the consumerist demands of capitalist America. As their relationship deteriorates into an endless cycle of squabbling, jealousy and recriminations, their trip and their dreams of self-fulfillment are thrown into jeopardy.
Yates's incisive, moving, and often very funny prose weaves a tale that is at once a fascinating period piece and a prescient anticipation of the way we live now. Many of the cultural motifs seem quaintly dated--the early-evening cocktails, Frank's illicit lunch breaks with his secretary, the way Frank isn't averse to knocking April around when she speaks out of turn--and yet the quiet desperation at thwarted dreams reverberates as much now as it did years ago. Like F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, this novel conveys, with brilliant erudition, the exacting cost of chasing the American dream. --Jane Morris, Amazon.co.uk [via]
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The Road from Coorainby Jill Ker ConwayISBN 0394574567 (0-394-57456-7)
Hardcover, Knopf Publishing Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Road from Coorain'Book summary:In A Memoir that pierces and delights us, Jill Ker Conway tells the story of her astonishing journey into adulthood -- a journey that would ultimately span immense distances and encompass worlds, ideas, and ways of life that seem a century apart.
She was seven before she ever saw another girl child. At eight, still too small to mount her horse unaided, she was galloping miles, alone, across Coorain, her parents' thirty thousand windswept, drought-haunted acres in the Australian outback, doing a "man's job" of helping herd the sheep because World War II had taken away the able-bodied men. She loved (and makes us see and feel) the vast unpeopled landscape, beautiful and hostile, whose uncertain weathers tormented the sheep ranchers with conflicting promises of riches and inescapable disaster. She adored (and makes us know) her large-visioned father and her strong, radiant mother, who had gone willingly with him into a pioneering life of loneliness and bone-breaking toil, who seemed miraculously to succeed in creating a warmly sheltering home in the harsh outback, and who, upon her husband's sudden death when Jill was ten, began to slide -- bereft of the partnership of work and love that had so utterly fulfilled her -- into depression and dependency.
We see Jill, staggered by the loss of her father, catapulted to what seemed another planet -- the suburban Sydney of the 1950s and its crowded, noisy, cliquish school life. Then the heady excitement of the University, but with it a yet more demanding course of lessons -- Jill embracing new ideas, new possibilities, while at the same time trying to be mother to her mother and resenting it, escaping into drink, pulling herself back, striking a balance. We see her slowly gaining strength, coming into her own emotionally and intellectually -and beginning the joyous love affair that gave wings to her newfound self.
Worlds away from Coorain, in America, Jill Conway became a historian and the first woman president of Smith College. Her story of Coorain and the road from Coorain startles by its passion and evocative power, by its understanding of the ways in which a total, deep-rooted commitment to place -- or to a dream -- can at once liberate and imprison. It is a story of childhood as both Eden and anguish, and of growing up as a journey toward the difficult life of the free. [via]More editions of The Road from Coorain:
Seek My Faceby John UpdikeISBN 0345460863 (0-345-46086-3)
Softcover, Ballantine Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Seek My Face'The Sins of the Fathersby Lawrence BlockISBN 038076363X (0-380-76363-X)
Softcover, Avon Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Sins of the Fathers'Book summary:The pretty young prostitute is dead. Her alleged murderera minister's sonhanged himself in his jail cell. The case is closed. But the dead girl's fatherhas come to Matthew Scudder for answers, sending the unlicensed private investigator in search of terrible truths about a life that was lived and lost in a sordid world of perversion and pleasures.
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A Spot of Botherby Mark HaddonISBN 0385520514 (0-385-52051-4)
Hardcover, Bantam Dell Pub Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Spot of Bother'Book summary:George Hall is an unobtrusive man. A little distant, perhaps, a little cautious, not at quite at ease with the emotional demands of fatherhood, or manly bonhomie. He does not understand the modern obsession with talking about everything. The secret of contentment, George felt, lay in ignoring many things completely. Some things in life, however, cannot be ignored.
At 61, George is settling down to a comfortable retirement, building a shed in his garden, reading historical novels and listening to a bit of light jazz. Then his tempestuous daughter, Katie, announces that she is getting re-married, to the deeply inappropriate Ray. Her family is not pleased as her brother Jamie observes, Ray has stranglers hands. Katie cant decide if she loves Ray, or loves the wonderful way he has with her son Jacob, and her mother Jean is a bit put out by all the planning and arguing the wedding has occasioned, which get in the way of her quite fulfilling late-life affair with one of her husbands ex-colleagues. And the tidy and pleasant life Jamie has created crumbles when he fails to invite his lover, Tony, to the dreaded nuptials.
Unnoticed in the uproar, George discovers a sinister lesion on his hip, and quietly begins to lose his mind.
The way these damaged people fall apart and come together as a family is the true subject of Haddons disturbing yet amusing portrait of a dignified man trying to go insane politely.
A SPOT OF BOTHER is Mark Haddons unforgettable follow-up to the internationally beloved bestseller THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME. Here the madness literally of family life proves rich comic fodder for Haddons crackling prose and bittersweet insights into misdirected love. [via]More editions of A Spot of Bother:
The Strange Cases of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hydeby Katherine Linehan, Robert Louis StevensonISBN 0393974650 (0-393-97465-0)
Softcover, Norton & Company, Incorporated, W. W.
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Strange Cases of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde'Book summary:The young Robert Louis Stevenson suffered from repeated nightmares of living a double life, in which by day he worked as a respectable doctor and by night he roamed the back alleys of old-town Edinburgh. In three days of furious writing, he produced a story about his dream existence. His wife found it too gruesome, so he promptly burned the manuscript. In another three days, he wrote it again. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was published as a "shilling shocker" in 1886, and became an instant classic. In the first six months, 40,000 copies were sold. Queen Victoria read it. Sermons and editorials were written about it. When Stevenson and his family visited America a year later, they were mobbed by reporters at the dock in New York City. Compulsively readable from its opening pages, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is still one of the best tales ever written about the divided self.
This University of Nebraska Press edition is a small, exquisitely produced paperback. The book design, based on the original first edition of 1886, includes wide margins, decorative capitals on the title page and first page of each chapter, and a clean, readable font that is 19th-century in style. Joyce Carol Oates contributes a foreword in which she calls Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde a "mythopoetic figure" like Frankenstein, Dracula, and Alice in Wonderland, and compares Stevenson's creation to doubled selves in the works of Plato, Poe, Wilde, and Dickens.
This edition also features 12 full-page wood engravings by renowned illustrator Barry Moser. Moser is a skillful reader and interpreter as well as artist, and his afterword to the book, in which he explains the process by which he chose a self-portrait motif for the suite of engravings, is fascinating. For the image of Edward Hyde, he writes, "I went so far as to have my dentist fit me out with a carefully sculpted prosthetic of evil-looking teeth. But in the final moments I had to abandon the idea as being inappropriate. It was more important to stay in keeping with the text and, like Stevenson, not show Hyde's face." (Also recommended: the edition of Frankenstein illustrated by Barry Moser) --Fiona Webster [via]
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Subterraneansby Jack KerouacISBN 0394179528 (0-394-17952-8)
Softcover, Grove Press
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Subterraneans'Book summary:In "Subterraneans" Leo and Mardou live amongst the Subterraneans who haunt the bars and clubs of San Fransisco and have a bittersweet love affair. In "Pic", on the road but not yet overawed, ten-year-old Pic tells the story in the Negro dialect of the North Carolina farm country. [via]
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The Sugar Addict's Total Recovery Programby Kathleen DesmaisonsISBN 0345441338 (0-345-44133-8)
Softcover, Ballantine Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Sugar Addict's Total Recovery Program'Book summary:Sugar lurks in foods in more than 85 different forms. Kathleen DesMaisons, Ph.D., the first person to receive a doctorate in addictive nutrition, says that besides being detrimental to the immune system, the more than 100 pounds of processed sugar consumed annually by each American is responsible for "mood swings, depression, fatigue, fuzzy thinking, PMS, impulsivity ... [and] unpredictable temper." And while overdosing on the sweet stuff is a national pastime, she says her research shows indulging in sugar highs should be treated much more seriously, akin to heroin or alcohol dependency, because sugar causes spikes in the neurotransmitters serotonin and beta-dopamine just like those drugs--and can eventually wreak similar mayhem on one's health, work, and relationships.
The Sugar Addict's Total Recovery Program is not a quick fix; DesMaisons's plan aims to eliminate sugar cravings, requiring five days of "detox," along with building up the resolve to stick to the recommendations over time--including while out at restaurants, during social gatherings, and while traveling. Fortunately, she offers plenty of tips for those situations, and her prescription is practical and easy to follow, including seven steps as simple as making sure some protein is included with each meal. (That's not to say this is a high-protein, low-carb diet; she criticizes Dr. Robert Atkins and other fad-diet hawkers.) DesMaisons includes more than 50 recipes that cover breakfast through dinner; advice for choosing comfort foods to replace those M&Ms and sodas; and an invitation to join the support group she runs through her Web site. The Recovery Program should be of particular interest to parents and teachers, considering the way sugar-saturated foods are ruthlessly marketed to children--Coke machines are more and more commonplace in elementary schools--and that many of the behaviors DesMaisons links to sugar sensitivity are remarkably similar to those of ADHD. --Erica Jorgensen [via]
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Sugar Busters!: Cut Sugar to Trim Fatby H. Leighton Steward, Morrison C. Bethea, Luis A. Balart, Sam S. AndrewsISBN 0345425588 (0-345-42558-8)
Hardcover, Ballantine Books
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The Testamentby John GrishamISBN 0375433538 (0-375-43353-8)
Hardcover, Random House Large Print
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Testament'Book summary:Troy Phelan, a 78-year-old eccentric and the 10th-richest man in America, is about to read his last will and testament, divvying up an estate worth $11 billion. Phelan's three ex-wives, their grasping spawn, a legion of lawyers, several psychiatrists, and a plethora of sound technicians wait breathlessly, all eyes glued to digital monitors as they watch the old man read his verdict. But Phelan shocks everyone with a bizarre, last-gasp attempt to redistribute the spoils, setting in motion a legal morality tale of a contested will, sin, and redemption.
Our hero, Nate O'Riley--a washed-up, alcoholic litigator with two ruined marriages in his wake and the IRS on his tail--is dispatched to the Brazilian wetlands in search of a mysterious heir named in the will. After a harrowing trip upriver to a remote settlement in the Pantanal, he encounters Rachel Lane, a pure-hearted missionary living with an indigenous tribe and carrying out "God's work." Rachel's grave dedication and kindness impress the jaded lawyer, so much that a nasty bout of dengue fever leads him to a vision that could change his life.
Back in the States, the legal proceedings drag on and Grisham has a high time with Phelan's money-hungry descendents, a regrettable bunch who squandered millions, married strippers, got druggy, and befriended the Mob. The youngest son, Ramble, is a multi-pierced, tattoo-covered malcontent with big dreams for his rock band, the Demon Monkeys. Will Nate get straight with Rachel's aid? Do the greedy heirs get theirs? What's the real legacy of a lifetime's work? The Testament is classic Grisham: a down-and-out lawyer, a lot of money, an action-packed pursuit, and the highest issues at stake. It's not just about great characters; it's about the question of what character is. --Rebekah Warren [via]
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The Tiny Oneby Eliza MinotISBN 037570633X (0-375-70633-X)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Tiny One'Tommyknockersby Stephen KingISBN 0399133143 (0-399-13314-3)
Hardcover, Putnam Pub Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Tommyknockers'Book summary:[This is Part 2 of a 2 part cassette audiobook edition.]
Something was happening in Bobbi Anderson's idyllic small town of Haven, Maine. Something that gave every man, woman, and child in town powers far beyond ordinary mortals. Something that turned the town into a death trap for all outsiders. Something that came from a metal object, buried for millennia, that Bobbi stumbled across. It wasn't that Bobbi and the other good folks of Haven had sold their souls to reap the rewards of the most deadly evil this side of hell. It was more like a diabolical takeover&an invasion of body and soul--and mind. [via]
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Trainspottingby Irvine WelshISBN 0393314804 (0-393-31480-4)
Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Trainspotting'Book summary:Irvine Welsh's controversial first novel, set on the heroin-addicted fringe of working-class youth in Edinburgh, is yet another exploration of the dark side of Scottishness. The main character, Mark Renton, is at the center of a clique of nihilistic slacker junkies with no hopes and no possibilities, and only "mind-numbing and spirit-crushing" alternatives in the straight world they despise. This particular slice of humanity has nothing left but the blackest of humor and a sharpness of wit. American readers can use the glossary in the back to translate the slang and dialect--essential, since the dialogue makes the book. This is a bleak vision sung as musical comedy. [via]
When the Sacred Ginmill Closesby Lawrence BlockISBN 0380728257 (0-380-72825-7)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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A Widow for One Year: A Novelby John IrvingISBN 0345424719 (0-345-42471-9)
Softcover, Ballantine Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Widow for One Year: A Novel'Book summary:John Irving fans will not be startled to find that A Widow for One Year is a sprawling farce-tragedy crawling with characters who are writers. In the opening scene, 4-year-old Ruth Cole walks in on her melancholy mother, Marion, who is in flagrante with 16-year-old Eddie, the driver for drunken Ted (Ruth's dad and Marion's estranged, womanizing husband).
Eddie spends the rest of his life obsessively writing novels like Sixty Times, his roman à clef about his 60 seductions by Marion. Ted is a failed novelist who gets rich and famous writing creepy children's stories based on tales he tells Ruth (such as The Mouse Crawling Between the Walls). Marion abandons Ruth, Ted, and Eddie and becomes a successful pseudonymous novelist. And Ruth becomes the most richly celebrated writer of them all because of her early training by Ted, who not only told her stories, but also helped her craft narratives to explain their home's many photographs of her brothers, who died in a gory car wreck the year before she was born. Grief over the boys is why Ruth's mother does not dare to love her.
Ruth, Irving's first female main character, works brilliantly, first as an imaginative, almost Salingeresque child coming to terms with her bewildering family, then as a grownup striving to understand her mother's motives--or at least to track her down. Ted is a mordantly funny caricature, interestingly sinister and plausibly self-justifying when most inexcusable. Eddie is a lovable schlemiel, yet not too sentimentally drawn. And what set pieces Irving can write! The story of the boys' death is horrific and effective in dramatizing the character of Ted, who narrates it. Ted's attempted murder by a spurned lover is as hilarious as the VW-down-the-marble-stairway scene in A Prayer for Owen Meany (which has been adapted by Disney Studios), though not quite on a par with the celebrated "Pension Grillparzer" episode in The World According to Garp (reissued in a 20th anniversary edition by Modern Library).
Irving has the effrontery to get away with practically any scene that comes into his head--Ruth winds up an eyewitness to a hooker's murder in Amsterdam, a Dutch detective starts tracking her down (just as Ruth is hunting Marion), and the multiple plot strands all converge in a finale that neatly echoes the opening scene. It's all done with the outrageously coincidental yet minutely realistic brio of Charles Dickens, with a sad, self-conscious jokiness like that of Irving's mentor, Kurt Vonnegut. --Tim Appelo [via]
More editions of A Widow for One Year: A Novel:
- A Widow for One Year: A Novel: ISBN 0345432835 (0-345-43283-5)
Softcover, Ballantine Books - A Widow for One Year: A Novel: ISBN 034543479X (0-345-43479-X)
Softcover, Ballantine Books - A Widow for One Year : A Novel: ISBN 0345469011 (0-345-46901-1)
Softcover, Random House Publishing Group - A Widow for One Year : A Novel: ISBN 037570289X (0-375-70289-X)
Softcover, Random House Large Print - A Widow for One Year : A Novel: ISBN 0375501371 (0-375-50137-1)
Hardcover, Random House Publishing Group - A Widow for One Year: A Novel: ISBN 0345424719 (0-345-42471-9)
Softcover, Ballantine Books
The Winter Pearlby Molly Noble BullISBN 0373785291 (0-373-78529-1)
Softcover, Harlequin Enterprises, Limited
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You'll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Againby Julia PhillipsISBN 0394575741 (0-394-57574-1)
Hardcover, Random House Publishing Group
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