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books tagged “families”
books tagged “families”
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All of a Kind Familyby Sydney TaylorISBN 0385732953 (0-385-73295-3)
Hardcover, Random House Children's Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'All-of-A-Kind Family'Book summary:There's something to be said for a book that makes you wish you'd been part of a poor immigrant family living in New York's upper east side on the eve of World War I. Sydney Taylor's time-honored classic does just that. Life is rich for the five mischievous girls in the family. They find adventure in visiting the library, going to market with Mama, even dusting the front room. Young readers who have never shared a bedroom with four siblings, with no television in sight, will vicariously experience the simple, old-fashioned pleasures of talk, make-believe, and pilfered penny candy. The family's Jewish faith strengthens their ties to each other, while providing still more excitement and opportunity for mischief. Readers unfamiliar with Judaism will learn with the girls during each beautifully depicted holiday. This lively family, subject of four more "all-of-a- kind" books, is full of unique characters, all deftly illustrated by Helen John. Taylor based the stories on her own childhood family, and the true-life quality of her writing gives this classic its page-turning appeal. (Ages 9 to 12) [via]
And Condors Dancedby Zilpha Keatley SnyderISBN 0385295758 (0-385-29575-8)
Hardcover, Random House Children's Books
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And This Too Shall Passby E. Lynn HarrisISBN 0385480318 (0-385-48031-8)
Softcover, Bantam Dell Pub Group
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Anne Frankby Doubleday StaffISBN 038542695X (0-385-42695-X)
Softcover, Doubleday Canada, Limited
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Another Bullshit Night in Suck City: A Memoirby Nick FlynnISBN 0393329402 (0-393-32940-2)
Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Another Bullshit Night in Suck City: A Memoir'Book summary:"Devastating....Ranks with Frank Conroy's Stop-Time."--Michael Cunningham
"Sometimes I'd see my father, walking past my building on his way to another nowhere. I could have given him a key, offered a piece of my floor. But if I let him inside the line between us would blur, my own slow-motion car wreck would speed up." Nick Flynn met his father for the third time when he was twenty-seven years old, working as a caseworker in a homeless shelter in Boston. As a teenager he'd received letters from this stranger, a self-proclaimed poet and con man doing time in federal prison for bank robbery. Nick, his own life precariously unsettled, was living alternately in a ramshackle boat and in a warehouse that was once a strip joint. In bold, dazzling prose, Another Bullshit Night in Suck City (a phrase Flynn senior uses to describe his life on the streets) tells the story of two lives and the trajectory that led Nick and his father into that homeless shelter, onto those streets, and finally to each other. [via]More editions of Another Bullshit Night in Suck City: A Memoir:
Anyone but Youby Lara M. ZeisesISBN 0385731450 (0-385-73145-0)
Hardcover, Random House Childrens Books
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The Astorsby Virginia CowlesISBN 0394414780 (0-394-41478-0)
Hardcover, Knopf
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Babyby Patricia MacLachlanISBN 0385311338 (0-385-31133-8)
Hardcover, Random House Children's Books
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Bebe's by Golly Wow!by Yolanda JoeISBN 0385492553 (0-385-49255-3)
Hardcover, Bantam Dell Pub Group
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Black and Blueby Anna QuindlenISBN 0385333137 (0-385-33313-7)
Softcover, Delta
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Black and Blue'Book summary:Oprah Book Club® Selection, April 1998: "The first time my husband hit me I was nineteen years old," begins Fran Benedetto, the broken heroine of Anna Quindlen's Black and Blue. With one sweeping sentence, the door to an abused and tortured world is swung wide open and the psyche of a crushed and tattered self-image exposed. "Frannie, Frannie, Fran"--as Bobby Benedetto liked to call her before smashing her into kitchen appliances--was a young, energetic nursing student when she met her husband-to-be at a local Brooklyn bar. She was instantly captivated by his dark, brooding looks and magnetic personality, but her fascination soon solidified into a marital prison sentence of incessant abuse and the destruction of her own identity. After an especially horrific beating and rape, Fran realizes that the next attack could be the last. Fearing her son would be left alone with Bobby, she escapes one morning with her child. Fran's salvation comes in the form of Patty Bancroft and Co., a relocation agency for abused women that touts better service than the witness protection program. Armed only with a phone number, a few hundred dollars, and the help of several anonymous volunteers, Fran begins a new life. The agency relocates her to Florida, where she becomes Beth Crenshaw, a recently divorced home-care assistant from Delaware. Fran and her son adapt, meeting challenges with unexpected resilience and resolve until their past returns to haunt them. Quindlen renders the intricacies of spousal abuse with eerie accuracy, taking the reader deep within the realm of dysfunctional human ties. However, her vivid descriptions of abuse, emotional disintegration, and acute loneliness at times numb the reader with their realism. [via]
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The Borgias: The Rise and Fall of a Renaissance Dynastyby Michael Edward MallettISBN 0389010308 (0-389-01030-8)
Hardcover, Barnes & Noble Imports
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A Brief Chapter in My Impossible Lifeby Dana ReinhardtISBN 0385746989 (0-385-74698-9)
Hardcover, Random House Children's Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Brief Chapter in My Impossible Life'Book summary:Simones starting her junior year in high school. Her moms a lawyer for the ACLU, her dads a political cartoonist, so shes grown up standing outside the organic food coop asking people to sign petitions for worthy causes. Shes got a terrific younger brother and amazing friends. And shes got a secret crush on a really smart and funny guywho spends all of his time with another girl.
Then her birth mother contacts her. Simones always known she was adopted, but she never wanted to know anything about it. Shes happy with her family just as it is, thank you.
She learns who her birth mother wasa 16-year-old girl named Rivka. Who is Rivka? Why has she contacted Simone? Why now? The answers lead Simone to deeper feelings of anguish and love than she has ever known, and to question everything she once took for granted about faith, life, the afterlife, and what it means to be a daughter. [via]More editions of A Brief Chapter in My Impossible Life:
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Brothers Karamazovby Fyodor DostoevskyISBN 0393092143 (0-393-09214-3)
Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Brothers Karamazov: Library Edition'Book summary:Constance Garnetts translation, the basic version in English of this Russian masterpiece, has been revised by the editor for accuracy and readability.
Dostoevskys sources for the characters and situations of the novel are set forth in an extract from Lev Reynuss Dostoevsky and Staraya Russa and in selections from Dostoevskys letters and diary, all translated by Professor Matlaw. Konstantin Mochulskys essay provides a general discussion of the work. Important questions as to the craft of the novel, its characterization, Dostoevskys symbolism, the Grand Inquisitor, and the theme of religious salvation are surveyed in critical pieces by Dmitry Tschizewskij, Robert L. Belknap, Edward Wasiolek, Harry Slochower, D. H. Lawrence, Albert Camus, Nathan Rosen, Leonid Grossman, Ya. E. Golosovker, R. P. Blackmur, and Ralph E. Matlaw. Several of these selections are also recently translated from the Russian. A Selected Bibliography is included. [via] -
Can't Get Enough: A Novelby Connie BriscoeISBN 0385501625 (0-385-50162-5)
Hardcover, Doubleday Publishing
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Can't Get Enough: A Novel'Book summary:The memorable men and women of P.G. County are back in Connie Briscoes wickedly funny and deliciously daring novel of romance and betrayal, dangerous choices and seductive second chances.
This romp of a read combines lush settings, humorous dialogue and outrageous behavior . . . Ebony magazine wrote of P.G. County, Connie Briscoes first excursion into the world of the overprivileged and undersatisfied inhabitants of an elite suburb of Washington, D.C. Readers will be delighted to learn that their mischievous machinations and meddlesome ways reach new heightsand sink to new depthsin CAN'T GET ENOUGH, the much-anticipated follow-up to P.G. County.
Barbara Bentley, the grand dame of P.G. County, is tentatively embarking on a fresh approach to life, abandoning the alcohol that served to soften the edges of her marriage to her bimbo-loving millionaire husband, Bradford. Shes been sober for nearly a year, her part-time work as a real estate agent has boosted her self-confidence, and the unexpected attentions of a handsome young colleague have done wonders for her ego. For Jolene, Bradfords ambitious, conniving ex-mistress, the status she covets remains tantalizingly out of reach. Her decent, hard-working husband, Patrick, has left her for Pearl, a woman proud of her success as a beauty shop owner and eager to create a loving home for Patrick and his two mixed-up teenage daughters. Royalty comes to Silver Lake in the form of Veronique. Shes rich, fabulous and everyones new friend, or is she?
As the characters slip in and out of their Pratesi sheets and stride into mayhem and misdeeds in their Jimmy Choo shoes, CAN'T GET ENOUGH will hold readers spellbound. A delectable and scrumptious page-turner, it ushers in spring with the fabulous force of a Gucci-clad lion. [via]More editions of Can't Get Enough: A Novel:
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Charming Billyby Alice McDermottISBN 038533334X (0-385-33334-X)
Softcover, Bantam Dell Pub Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Charming Billy'Book summary:Charming Billy is a devastating account of the power of longing and lies, love's tenacity and resignations hold. Even at his funeral party, Billy Lynch's life remains up for debate. This soft-spoken, poetry lover's drinking was as legendary among his Queens', New York, family and friends as was his disappointment in love. But the latter, as his cousin Dennis knows, "was, after all, yet another sweet romance to preserve." After World War II, both young men had spent one sun-swept week on Long Island, renovating a house and falling in with two Irish sisters--nannies to a wealthy family--"marvelling, marvelling still, that this Eden was here, at the other end of the same island on which they had spent their lives." By the end of their idyll, Billy and Eva were engaged, though she was set to return to County Wicklow. Determined to earn enough money to bring her, her family, and if necessary her entire village back to the US, Billy took two jobs, one of which would indenture him for years. But despite the money he sent, Eva never returned, and then was suddenly dead of pneumonia. The true tragedy is that she had simply kept her fare and married someone else--a secret Dennis keeps for the next 30 years as he watches Billy fall into a loveless marriage and the self-administered anaesthesia of alcohol. Alice McDermott's quiet, striking novel is a study of the lies that bind and the weight of familial wishes. She seems far less interested in the shock of revelation than in her characters' power to live through personal disaster. As Dennis's daughter pieces together Billy's real history, she also learns of the accommodations her own family had long made--and discovers that good intentions can be as destructive as the truth they mean to hide. Amazon.com [via]
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Child of Mine: Writers Talk About the First Year of Motherhoodby Christina Baker KlineISBN 0385333021 (0-385-33302-1)
Softcover, Delta
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Christmas with Anne : And Other Holiday Storiesby L. M. Montgomery, Rea WilmshurstISBN 0385322887 (0-385-32288-7)
Hardcover, Random House Children's Books
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Cold Sassy Treeby Olive Ann BurnsISBN 038531258X (0-385-31258-X)
Softcover, Bantam Dell Pub Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Cold Sassy Tree'Book summary:If the preacher's wife's petticoat showed, the ladies would make the talk last a week. But on July 5, 1906, things took a scandalous turn. That was the day E. Rucker Blakeslee, proprietor of the general store and barely three weeks a widower, eloped with Miss Love Simpsona woman half his age and, worse yet, a Yankee! On that day, fourteen-year-old Will Tweedy's adventures began and an unimpeachably pious, deliciously irreverent town came to life. Not since To Kill A Mockingbird has a novel so deftly captured the subtle crosscurrents of small-town Southern life. Olive Ann Burns classic bestseller brings to vivid life an era that will never exist again, exploring timeless issues of love, death, coming of age, and the ties that bind families and generations. [via]
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Coming Outby Danielle SteelISBN 0385338325 (0-385-33832-5)
Hardcover, Delacorte Pr
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Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Familiesby J. Anthony LukasISBN 0394411501 (0-394-41150-1)
Hardcover, Knopf Publishing Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families'Book summary:The climax of this humane account of 10 years in Boston that began with news of Martin Luther King's assassination, is a watershed moment in the city's modern history--the 1974 racist riots that followed the court-ordered busing of kids to integrate the schools. To bring understanding to that moment, Lukas, a former New York Times journalist, focuses on two working-class families, headed by an Irish-American widow and an African-American mother, and on the middle-class family of a white liberal couple. Lukas goes beyond stereotypes, carefully grounding each perspective in its historical roots, whether in the antebellum South, or famine-era Ireland. In the background is the cast of public figures--including Judge Garrity, Mayor White, and Cardinal Cushing--with cameo roles in this disturbing history that won the 1986 Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction. [via]
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Covenantby James A. MichenerISBN 0394505050 (0-394-50505-0)
Hardcover, Random House Publishing Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Covenant'Book summary:Set in South Africa, beginning 15,000 years ago and ending with the Boer War, this is a novel about people caught up in the march of world history. It is a story of adventure and heroism, love and loyalty, and cruelty and betrayal. [via]
Crossing the Riverby Caryl PhillipsISBN 0394280350 (0-394-28035-0)
Hardcover, Knopf Canada
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Crow Lakeby Mary LawsonISBN 0385337639 (0-385-33763-9)
Softcover, Bantam Dell Pub Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Crow Lake'Book summary:Crow Lake is that rare find, a first novel so quietly assured, so emotionally pitch perfect, you know from the opening page that this is the real thinga literary experience in which to lose yourself, by an author of immense talent.
Here is a gorgeous, slow-burning story set in the rural badlands of northern Ontario, where heartbreak and hardship are mirrored in the landscape. For the farming Pye family, life is a Greek tragedy where the sins of the fathers are visited on the sons, and terrible events occuroffstage.
Centerstage are the Morrisons, whose tragedy looks more immediate if less brutal, but is, in reality, insidious and divisive. Orphaned young, Kate Morrison was her older brother Matts protegee, her fascination for pond life fed by his passionate interest in the natural world. Now a zoologist, she can identify organisms under a microscope but seems blind to the state of her own emotional life. And she thinks shes outgrown her siblingsLuke, Matt, and Bowho were once her entire world.
In this universal drama of family love and misunderstandings, of resentments harbored and driven underground, Lawson ratchets up the tension with heartbreaking humor and consummate control, continually overturning ones expectations right to the very end. Tragic, funny, unforgettable, Crow Lake is a quiet tour de force that will catapult Mary Lawson to the forefront of fiction writers today. [via] -
David Copperfieldby Charles Dickens, Jerome Hamilton BuckleyISBN 0393958280 (0-393-95828-0)
Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'David Copperfield'Book summary:This Norton Critical Edition reprints the original 1850 text of Dickens most autobiographical novel, and his own personal favorite, including all of the line drawings by Phiz.
The editor has made necessary typographical corrections and carefully introduced and annotated the text for the student reader.
Dickens number plans for David Copperfield, which reveal his practice both as a serial writer and as a craftsman, are also included.
"Backgrounds" focuses on Dickens personal involvement with and response to the novels publication. Included are passages from his letters relating to David Copperfield, an autobiographical fragment, his preface to the 1869 edition of the novel, and a relevant excerpt from Little Dorrit.
"Criticism" is comprised of twelve essays by distinguished Dickensians representing a wide range of judgment and analysis. John Forster, Matthew Arnold, E. K. Brown, Gwendolyn B. Needham, Monroe Engel, J. Hillis Miller, Mark Spilka, Harry Stone, Bert G. Hornback, Garrett Stewart, Robert L. Patten, and Alexander Walsh provide a variety of perspectives.
A Chronology of Dickens Life and Works and a Selected Bibliography are also included.
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The Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Editionby Anne Frank, Mirjam Pressler, Otto H. FrankISBN 0385473788 (0-385-47378-8)
Hardcover, Bantam Dell Pub Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition'Book summary:Anne Frank's diaries have always been among the most moving and eloquent documents of the Holocaust. This new edition restores diary entries omitted from the original edition, revealing a new depth to Anne's dreams, irritations, hardships, and passions. Anne emerges as more real, more human, and more vital than ever. If you've never read this remarkable autobiography, do so. If you have read it, you owe it to yourself to read it again. [via]
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Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Editonby Anne Frank, Mirjam Pressler, Otto H. Frank, Susan MassottyISBN 0385480334 (0-385-48033-4)
Softcover, Anchor Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Editon'Book summary:The basis for and official tie-in edition to the PBS Masterpiece Classic movie titled The Diary of Anne Frank , directed by Jon Jones from a screenplay by Deborah Moggach. First airing April 11, 2010. More than fifty years after its first publication, Doubleday's definitive edition of Anne Frank's famous diary generated an extraordinary amount of excitement when it was published in early 1995. Enthusiastically received by critics and readers alike, it reigned for nine weeks on The New York Times bestseller list and will remain for all time the version that millions of readers will cherish.In a handsome package with flaps, rough front, and printed endpapers, this Anchor trade paperback will be the perfect gift for anyone who seeks insight into the indestructible nature of the human spirit. [via]
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The Diary of Anne Frank: The Revised Critical Editionby Anne Frank, David Barnouw, Gerrold van der Stroom, H. J. J. Hardy, Gerrold Van Der Stroom, Barnouw. David, Arnold J. Pomerans, Susan Massotty, B. M. Mooyaart-DoubledayISBN 0385508476 (0-385-50847-6)
Hardcover, Doubleday
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Diary of Anne Frank: The Revised Critical Edition'Book summary:A comparison of the three versions of Anne Frank's diary; Anne's original entries, including never-before-published material; the diary as she herself edited it while in hiding; and the best-known version, edited by her father.
B & W photographs throughout [via]More editions of The Diary of Anne Frank: The Revised Critical Edition:
Disobedienceby Jane HamiltonISBN 0385720467 (0-385-72046-7)
Softcover, Anchor Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Disobedience'Book summary:A wayward wife, an Oedipally obsessed e-mail snoop, a pint-sized Civil War reenactor (oops, make that living historian), and a cheerfully oblivious cuckold comprise the Shaws of Chicago, the decidedly quirky characters of Jane Hamilton's fourth novel, Disobedience. An unlikely family to fall prey to the vagaries of modern life, the Shaws are consumed with clog dancing, early music, and the War Between the States. But they do possess a computer, and when 17-year-old Henry stumbles into his mother's e-mail account and epistolary evidence of her affair with a Ukrainian violinist, he becomes consumed with this glimpse into her life as a woman, not simply a mother.
To picture my mother a lover, I had at first to break her in my mind's eye, hold her over my knee, like a stick, bust her in two. When that was done, when I had changed her like that, I could see her in a different way. I could put her through the motions like a jointed puppet, all dancy in the limbs, loose, nothing to hold her up but me.
While his mother (whom he refers to variously as Mrs. Shaw, Beth, and her e-mail sobriquet, Liza38), dallies with her pen pal, whom she calls "the companion of my body, the guest of my heart," Henry experiences his own sexual awakening; his 13-year-old sister, Elvira, retreats into gender-bending historical fantasy; and their father remains determinedly absorbed in pedagogical responsibilities.Ironically (and not completely convincingly) narrated by an adult Henry, Disobedience has a rollicking tone somewhat at odds with the somber prospects that loom for this family. A very worldly teenager in some ways, despite the hippie wholesomeness of his family, Henry tells his tale in abundant, almost flowery prose, imagining his mother's private life with elegiac fervor. As in her earlier A Map of the World, Jane Hamilton writes with affection and insight about the darker side of apparently ordinary Midwestern folks. --Victoria Jenkins [via]
The Duke of Deception: Memories of My Fatherby Geoffrey WolffISBN 0394410521 (0-394-41052-1)
Hardcover, Random House
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Emily of New Moonby L.M. Montgomery, Priscilla GallowayISBN 0385325061 (0-385-32506-1)
Hardcover, Random House Childrens Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Emily of New Moon'Book summary:Anne may be L.M. Montgomery's most famous heroine, but as far as fans of the Emily books are concerned she can't compare with the elfin poet of New Moon. Emily, who was also Montgomery's favourite character, bears a certain resemblance to Anne. Like the spunky, red-headed orphan of Green Gables, 10-year-old Emily Byrd Starr loses both her parents and ends up living with a stern spinster in a remote but beautiful farming community on Prince Edward Island. Also like Anne, her high spirits get her into lots of mischief. But the raven-haired Emily, with her purple eyes and come-hither smile, is a more conventionally romantic heroine than Anne. While Anne of Green Gables is the ugly-duckling tale of a young girl's yearning for love and acceptance, Emily's ethereal looks guarantee her admirers from the beginning.
What Emily wants desperately is to be a writer. As she explains to her teacher, "Why, I have to write--I can't help it by times--I've just got to." In this novel and its two sequels, Emily Climbs and Emily's Quest, Montgomery tells the moving and semi-autobiographical story of Emily's struggle to realize her ambition. The opening chapters of Emily of New Moon, dealing with the death of Emily's consumptive father, are awkward and melodramatic. But few children's novels--Little Women and Harriet the Spy come to mind--offer as fine a portrait of an artistic child's imaginative inner life. Spend some time with Emily and her friends and you'll be a fan, too. (Ages 9 to 12) --Lisa Alward [via]
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Eve Greenby Susan FletcherISBN 0393327981 (0-393-32798-1)
Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
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Frances Hodgson Burnett's the Secret Gardenby Frances Hodgson Burnett, Gretchen Holbrook GerzinaISBN 0393926354 (0-393-92635-4)
Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Frances Hodgson Burnett's the Secret Garden'Book summary:Frances Hodgson Burnett was the highest paid and most widely read woman writer of her time, publishing more than fifty novels and thirteen plays.
Born in England and transplanted to New York toward the end of the Civil War, Burnett made her home in both countries, and today both countries claim her as their own. The Secret Garden, her best-known work, became an instant modern classic and world-wide bestseller upon its publication in 1911. The text of this Norton Critical Edition is based on the first edition and is accompanied by explanatory annotations.
"Backgrounds and Contexts" and "Letters" illuminate important aspects of Burnetts life and work and include her own writings on gardens and their spiritual healing. Four illustrations point to Burnetts prominence in popular culture.
"Criticism" includes fourteen contemporary reviews and nine recent critical views of The Secret Garden, including Jerry Phillipss sociopolitical interpretation and Phyllis Bixlers comparative analysis of the Broadway musical adaptation of the novel.
A Chronology and Selected Bibliography are also included. [via]More editions of Frances Hodgson Burnett's the Secret Garden:
Gabriel's Storyby David Anthony DurhamISBN 0385720335 (0-385-72033-5)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Gabriel's Story'Book summary:With his first novel, Gabriel's Story, David Anthony Durham delivers a fresh take on the American frontier. The settlers aren't white men but emancipated slaves, whose journey into the promised land is driven by the harsh memory of captivity. Unlike the wagon-train pioneers we're used to reading about, Durham's characters are refugees of Reconstruction. Yet they're seduced by the same promises as their white counterparts--promises that anyone can be a landowner, that this land is your land, that it's only a matter of staking your claim.
The protagonist, 15-year-old Gabriel Lynch, wonders why his widowed mother falls for this propaganda. He sulks on the long train ride from New York to Kansas, pining for the humble brownstone apartment they're leaving behind. He dreads their arrival on the prairie and their rendezvous with his new stepfather, Solomon, a man the boy distrusts as virtually all teenage boys distrust their smiling, imperious stepfathers. Upon arriving at Solomon's sod house, Gabriel's contempt only increases: "It was a single room. The walls pushed into and cramped the space, making it feel much smaller on the inside than the shadow had indicated from the outside. It was smoky and moist and earthen all at once, with a smell unpleasant enough to contort Gabriel's face."
The patience required to cultivate the hard, unforgiving prairie isn't something Gabriel possesses, and soon he runs away--joining a gang of mostly white cowboys headed for Texas. Like the heroes in most Wild West novels, Gabriel seeks adventure. What he finds is racism, violence, and eventually murder. Compelling, suspenseful, and meticulously written, Gabriel's Story is an exploration of the idea of the frontier and the meaning of ownership, filtered through the narrator's cynical, over-the-hill teenage perspective. And Gabriel himself, who seems old beyond his years, is a memorable protagonist: a grouchy lost boy, impatient for his life to unfold. --Ellen Williams [via]
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The Giverby Lois LowryISBN 0385732554 (0-385-73255-4)
Softcover, Random House Childrens Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Giver'Book summary:In a world with no poverty, no crime, no sickness and no unemployment, and where every family is happy, 12-year-old Jonas is chosen to be the community's Receiver of Memories. Under the tutelage of the Elders and an old man known as the Giver, he discovers the disturbing truth about his utopian world and struggles against the weight of its hypocrisy. With echoes of Brave New World, in this 1994 Newbery Medal winner, Lowry examines the idea that people might freely choose to give up their humanity in order to create a more stable society. Gradually Jonas learns just how costly this ordered and pain-free society can be, and boldly decides he cannot pay the price. [via]
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Great Expectationsby Charles Dickens, Edgar RosenbergISBN 0393960692 (0-393-96069-2)
Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Great Expectations'Book summary:Dickens considered Great Expectations one of his "little pieces," and indeed, it is slim compared to such weighty novels as David Copperfield or Nicholas Nickleby. But what this cautionary tale of a young man raised high above his station by a mysterious benefactor lacks in length, it more than makes up for in its remarkable characters and compelling story. The novel begins with young orphaned Philip Pirrip--Pip--running afoul of an escaped convict in a cemetery. This terrifying personage bullies Pip into stealing food and a file for him, threatening that if he tells a soul "your heart and your liver shall be tore out, roasted and ate." The boy does as he's asked, but the convict is captured anyway, and transported to the penal colonies in Australia. Having started his novel in a cemetery, Dickens then ups the stakes and introduces his hero into the decaying household of Miss Havisham, a wealthy, half-mad woman who was jilted on her wedding day many years before and has never recovered. Pip is brought there to play with Miss Havisham's ward, Estella, a little girl who delights in tormenting Pip about his rough hands and future as a blacksmith's apprentice.
I had never thought of being ashamed of my hands before; but I began to consider them a very indifferent pair. Her contempt for me was so strong, that it became infectious, and I caught it.
It is an infection that Pip never quite recovers from; as he spends more time with Miss Havisham and the tantalizing Estella, he becomes more and more discontented with his guardian, the kindhearted blacksmith, Joe, and his childhood friend Biddy. When, after several years, Pip becomes the heir of an unknown benefactor, he leaps at the chance to leave his home and friends behind to go to London and become a gentleman. But having expectations, as Pip soon learns, is a two-edged sword, and nothing is as he thought it would be. Like that other "little piece," A Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations is different from the usual Dickensian fare: the story is dark, almost surreal at times, and you'll find few of the author's patented comic characters and no comic set pieces. And yet this is arguably the most compelling of Dickens's novels for, unlike David Copperfield or Martin Chuzzlewit, the reader can never be sure that things will work out for Pip. Even Dickens apparently had his doubts--he wrote two endings for this novel. --Alix Wilber [via] 
Growing up Firstborn: The Pressure and Privilege of Being Number Oneby Kevin LemanISBN 0385297696 (0-385-29769-6)
Hardcover, Dell Publishing
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Hamletby William Shakespeare, Cyrus Henry HoyISBN 0393316424 (0-393-31642-4)
Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Hamlet'Book summary:This revised Norton Critical Edition of one of the series' most widely read texts is based on the second quarto (1604-05). Where necessary, the editor has also drawn from the folio text, recording all departures from the quarto in the Textual Notes. Punctuation and stage directions for the play have been refined, and textual annotations have been revised and expanded.
The "Intellectual Backgrounds" and "Extracts from the Sources" sections, both highly praised, remain as germane as ever. Intellectual Backgrounds includes important readings on melancholy, demonology, the nature of man, and death, including works by Peter de la Primaudaye, Timothy Bright, Lewes Lavater, G. Gifford, Michel de Montaigne, and Heironymous Cardanus. Extracts from the Sources provides pre-Shakespearean accounts of the story of Hamlet, reprinting substantial excerpts from Saxo Grammaticus's Historia Danica and Belleforest's Histoires Tragiques.
"Criticism" has been revised to accommodate the most significant recent interpretations of Hamlet while retaining the seminal essays of the First Edition. Twenty-three critical analyses are featured, including those by Samuel Johnson, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Hazlitt, A. C. Bradley, D. H. Lawrence, T. S. Eliot, G. Wilson Knight, C. S. Lewis, Harry Levin, Peter J. Seng, Rebecca West, Arnold Kettle, Margaret W. Ferguson, Jacqueline Rose, and William Empson.
An updated Selected Bibliography is also included.
[via] -
Happy All the Timeby Laurie ColwinISBN 039450190X (0-394-50190-X)
Hardcover, Knopf Publishing Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Happy All the Time'Book summary:This delightful comedy of manners and morals is about romantic friendship, romantic marriage, and romantic love--about four people who are good-hearted and sane, lucky and gifted, and who find one another. Knowing that happiness is an art form that requires energy, discipline, and talent, Guido, Holly, Vincnt, and Misty deal with jealousy, estrangement, and other perils involved in the search for love. [via]
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The Hard Wayby Lee ChildISBN 0385336691 (0-385-33669-1)
Hardcover, Bantam Dell Pub Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Hard Way'Book summary:In Lee Childs astonishing new thriller, exmilitary cop Reacher sees more than most people would...and because of that, hes thrust into an explosive situation thats about to blow up in his face. For the only way to find the truthand save two innocent livesis to do it the way Jack Reacher does it best: the hard way&.
Jack Reacher was alone, the way he liked it, soaking up the hot, electric New York City night, watching a man cross the street to a parked Mercedes and drive it away. The car contained one million dollars in ransom money. And Edward Lane, the man who paid it, will pay even more to get his family back. Lane runs a highly illegal soldiers-for-hire operation. He will use any amount of money and any tool to find his beautiful wife and child. And then hell turn Jack Reacher loose with a vengeancebecause Reacher is the best man hunter in the world.
On the trail of a vicious kidnapper, Reacher is learning the chilling secrets of his employers past&and of a horrific drama in the heart of a nasty little war. Hes beginning to realize that Edward Lane is hiding something. Something dirty. Something big. But Reacher also knows this: hes already in way too deep to stop now. [via]More editions of The Hard Way:
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Harriet the Spyby Louise FitzhughISBN 0385327838 (0-385-32783-8)
Hardcover, Random House Childrens Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Harriet the Spy'Book summary:Ages 8-12. Thirty-two years before it was made into a movie, Harriet the Spy was a groundbreaking book: its unflinchingly honest portrayal of childhood problems and emotions changed children's literature forever. Happily, it has neither dated nor become obsolete and remains one of the best children's novels ever written. The fascinating story is about an intensely curious and intelligent girl, who literally spies on people and writes about them in her secret notebook, trying to make sense of life's absurdities. When her classmates find her notebook and read her painfully blunt comments about them, Harriet finds herself a lonely outcast. Fitzhugh's writing is astonishingly vivid, real and engaging, and Harriet, by no means a typical, loveable heroine, is one of literature's most unforgettable characters. School Library Journal wrote, "a tour de force... bursts with life." The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books called it "a very, very funny story." And The Chicago Tribune raved, "brilliantly written... a superb portrait of an extraordinary child." [via]
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I Know Why the Caged Bird Singsby Maya AngelouISBN 0394429869 (0-394-42986-9)
Hardcover, Random House Publishing Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings'Book summary:In this first of five volumes of autobiography, poet Maya Angelou recounts a youth filled with disappointment, frustration, tragedy, and finally hard-won independence. Sent at a young age to live with her grandmother in Arkansas, Angelou learned a great deal from this exceptional woman and the tightly knit black community there. These very lessons carried her throughout the hardships she endured later in life, including a tragic occurrence while visiting her mother in St. Louis and her formative years spent in California--where an unwanted pregnancy changed her life forever. Marvelously told, with Angelou's "gift for language and observation," this "remarkable autobiography by an equally remarkable black woman from Arkansas captures, indelibly, a world of which most Americans are shamefully ignorant." [via]
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Journeyby Patricia MacLachlanISBN 0385304277 (0-385-30427-7)
Hardcover, Random House Children's Books
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Kissing Doorknobsby Terry Spencer HesserISBN 0385323298 (0-385-32329-8)
Hardcover, Random House Children's Books
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Little Gloria . . . Happy at Lastby Barbara GoldsmithISBN 0394428366 (0-394-42836-6)
Hardcover, Knopf Publishing Group
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Live the Life You Love: In Ten Easy Step-By Step Lessonsby Barbara SherISBN 0385316623 (0-385-31662-3)
Hardcover, Bantam Dell Pub Group
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The Lives of the Kings and Queens of Englandby 1975.Da28.1 New York : KnopfISBN 0394495578 (0-394-49557-8)
Hardcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Lives of the Kings and Queens of England'Book summary:The Lives of the Kings and Queens of England surveys the epic saga of England's monarchs, spanning ten great dynasties, from the invading Normans of 1066 to the House of Windsor today. Edited by noted historian Antonia Fraser, the book features eight-specialist contributors exploring the complex characters of many royal figures, including Victoria and the enigmatic Richard III. Vividly narrated by stage and screen veteran Wanda McCaddon, this is a glittering celebration of almost 1,000 years of English history, told through the lives and deeds of England's kings and queens. [via]
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May Contain Nuts: A Novel of Extreme Parentingby John O'FarrellISBN 0385606087 (0-385-60608-7)
Hardcover, Doubleday
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The Mayor of Casterbridgeby Thomas Hardy, Phillip MallettISBN 0393974987 (0-393-97498-7)
Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Mayor of Casterbridge'Book summary:Michael Henchard is the respected mayor of Casterbridge, a thriving industrial town--but years ago, under the influence of alcohol, he sold his wife Susan to a sailor at a country fair. Although repentant and sober for 21 years, Henchard cannot escape his destiny when Susan and her daughter return to Casterbridge. [via]
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The Merchant of Veniceby William Shakespeare, Leah S. MarcusISBN 0393925293 (0-393-92529-3)
Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Merchant of Venice'Book summary:The Merchant of Venice is one of Shakespeares most beautiful plays and, conversely, his ugliest. Juxtaposed within the same conceptual frame are heavenly and musical harmonies, romantic love, materialism, and racism.
This Norton Critical Edition has been carefully edited to make The Merchant of Venice, its surrounding history, and the history of its critical reception and rewritings accessible to readers. The text of this edition is based on the 1600 First Quarto, with light editing and substantial explanatory annotations by Leah S. Marcus.
"Sources and Contexts" largely focuses on the character of Shylock and the issue of anti-Semitism in the play. Materials included are diverse, and at times contradictory, allowing readers to draw their own conclusions. Examples include seventeenth-century anti-Semitic literature, an essay from the same period defending Jews and arguing for their repatriation in England, an examination of the Christian theology of the play, and readings of The Merchant of Venice as exclusionary for Jews, women, and people of color.
"Criticism" collects twenty-one diverse interpretations. In addition to Shylock and the question of anti-Semitism, these essays address The Merchant of Venice in the context of postcolonial, feminist, and queer theory and explore relevant issues of economic status and organization.
"Rewritings and Appropriations" includes excerpts from dramatic, musical, and other literary adaptations of The Merchant of Venice, as well as a selection of poems, most of them from the twentieth century, on the character of Shylock.
A Selected Bibliography is also included. [via]More editions of The Merchant of Venice:
Misconceptions : Truth, Lies and the Unexpected on the Journey to Motherhoodby Naomi WolfISBN 0385497458 (0-385-49745-8)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Misconceptions: Truth, Lies, and the Unexpected on the Journey to Motherhood'Book summary:
Not since The Beauty Myth has Naomi Wolf written such a powerful and passionate critique of American culture, this time, focusing on the hidden costs and vested interests surrounding pregnancy and birth in America.
While in the grip of one of the most primal, lonely, sensual and in the same ways, physically dangerous experiences they are likely to undergo, American women, Wolf argues, are offered condescending advice and damaging misconceptions about the nature of pregnancy, birth and new motherhood.
Wolfs own first experience with pregnancy and motherhood took her aback, profoundly challenging her most basic assumptions about feminism, the nuances of abortion, and the easy expectations of freedom and equality that women of her generation hold.
In a narrative that follows the nine months of pregnancy and the first few months of early parenthood, Misconceptions illuminates the conflicting feelings of inadequacy, fragility, and even anger that so many women experience along with their sense of anticipation and joy. So often these feelings go unvoiced because of womens fears of being seen as a bad mother. Wolf describes her own difficult path to first-time motherhood, and in doing so, criticizes the failure of the medical establishment to provide pregnant women with a safe, effective, and emotionally-supportive environment in which to labor. She shares riveting stories of postpartum disillusionment, as well as discloses the relationship struggles that even the most committed of couples fall into when faced with the demands of new parenthood.
In a dramatic interweaving of personal revelations and social commentary, Wolf shows that despite its much-touted reverence for families, American businesses and society make few concessions to the emotional and economic needs of new parents and, in fact, place extraordinary pressures on them.
Her conclusions, delivered with unflinching honesty, provide a telling and candid account of the journey to motherhood in America today.
Misconceptions is sure to spark intense debate over the myths and expectations that underlie contemporary pregnancy and birth, as well as about how we can better offer mothers what they truly need. [via]More editions of Misconceptions : Truth, Lies and the Unexpected on the Journey to Motherhood:
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Moral Disorder: And Other Storiesby Margaret AtwoodISBN 0385503849 (0-385-50384-9)
Hardcover, Bantam Dell Pub Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Moral Disorder: And Other Stories'Book summary:Margaret Atwood is acknowledged as one of the foremost writers of our time. In Moral Disorder, she has created a series of interconnected stories that trace the course of a life and also the lives intertwined with itthose of parents, of siblings, of children, of friends, of enemies, of teachers, and even of animals. As in a photograph album, time is measured in sharp, clearly observed moments. The 30s, the 40s, the 50s, the 60s, the 70s, the 80s, the 90s, and the present all are here. The settings vary: large cities, suburbs, farms, northern forests.
The Bad News is set in the present, as a couple no longer young situate themselves in a larger world no longer safe. The narrative then switches time as the central character moves through childhood and adolescence in The Art of Cooking and Serving, The Headless Horseman, and My Last Duchess. We follow her into young adulthood in The Other Place and then through a complex relationship, traced in four of the stories: Monopoly, Moral Disorder, White Horse, and The Entities. The last two stories, "The Labrador Fiasco" and "The Boys at the Lab," deal with the heartbreaking old age of parents but circle back again to childhood, to complete the cycle.
By turns funny, lyrical, incisive, tragic, earthy, shocking, and deeply personal, Moral Disorder displays Atwoods celebrated storytelling gifts and unmistakable style to their best advantage. As the New York Times has said: "The reader has the sense that Atwood has complete access to her people's emotional histories, complete understanding of their hearts and imaginations. [via]More editions of Moral Disorder: And Other Stories:
A Mother's Story : My Battle to Free David Milgaardby Joyce Milgaard, Peter EdwardsISBN 0385258070 (0-385-25807-0)
Hardcover, Doubleday Canada, Limited
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Mr. Commitmentby Mike GayleISBN 0385501005 (0-385-50100-5)
Hardcover, Doubleday Publishing
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My Uncle Oswaldby Roald DahlISBN 0394510119 (0-394-51011-9)
Hardcover, Knopf Publishing Group
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One True Thingby Anna QuindlenISBN 0385319207 (0-385-31920-7)
Softcover, Dell Publishing
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› Find signed collectible books: 'One True Thing'Book summary:One True Thing is a film starring Meryl Streep as the cancer-stricken homemaker mother, Renee Zellweger as the daughter who quits her top-dog job to care for her, and William Hurt as the chilly professor who lets the women in the family do the heavy emotional lifting dying requires. But the real star of the project remains former New York Times everyday-life columnist Anna Quindlen, who quit her top-dog job to write novels (and who took time off from college to nurse her own dying mother).
Quindlen hit a nerve with One True Thing, which captures an experience seldom dealt with in popular culture. (One exception: the sensitive 1996 film with Streep and Leonardo DiCaprio of the play Marvin's Room.) Though the heroine of One True Thing, Ellen Gulden, is a golden girl with two brothers who'll lose her career the instant she steps off the fast track, society concurs with her dad, who says, "It seems to me another woman is what's wanted here."
The book is a mother-daughter tale that should please fans of, say, The Joy Luck Club. It's not flashy, but it has a deep feel for the way children often discover, just before it's too late, who their parents really are. "Our parents are never people to us," Ellen writes, "they're always character traits.... There is only room in the lifeboat of your life for one, and you always choose yourself, and turn your parents into whatever it takes to keep you afloat." The mercy-killing subplot isn't gripping, but the palpable sense of deepening family intimacy certainly is. --Tim Appelo [via]
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P. G. Countyby Connie BriscoeISBN 0385501617 (0-385-50161-7)
Hardcover, Doubleday Publishing
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Perfidiaby Judith RossnerISBN 0385484275 (0-385-48427-5)
Hardcover, Bantam Dell Pub Group
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Petty Details of So-And-So Lifeby Camilla GibbISBN 0385658036 (0-385-65803-6)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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Running in the Familyby Michael OndaatjeISBN 0393016374 (0-393-01637-4)
Hardcover, W.W. Norton
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Running in the Family'Book summary:Picture The Great Gatsby with heat, tea plantations, and even more gin and you've got part of Michael Ondaatje's 1982 Running in the Family. Set in Ondaatje's native Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Running begins with the champagne shenanigans of competitively romantic upper-class youths swept up in that first global trend, the Jazz Age: "They all went swimming again with just the modesty of the night. An arm touched a face. A foot touched a stomach. They could have almost drowned or fallen in love." The main characters to emerge from this frolicking set of dancers and drinkers are Ondaatje's parents, and it is upon them that the book turns from moonlit serenades to financial and emotional ruin.
Part travelogue, part family memoir (complete with photographs), part collection of poems, Running is also a poignant autobiography/biography that reimagines the alcoholism of Ondaatje's father Mervyn and the eventual (inevitable?) divorce of his parents. In telling these tall tales, Ondaatje is affectionate and insightful toward a father who was clearly difficult to accommodate in life. Driving intoxicated over a rickety wooden bridge no one else would trust in any condition, Mervyn turns to young Michael to wink and claim, "God loves a drunk."
Running marks the commencement of Ondaatje's growing interest in migration (does running run in the family?). The expatriate characters of Ondaatje's later novels are here presaged by a generation of Ceylonese steaming off to England for education and an enduring love of cricket. Salman Rushdie knows that "the past is a country from which we are all migrants." In Running in the Family, Ondaatje reaches back, inwards, and abroad to map that most treasured and troubled of places, the human heart. --Darryl Whetter [via]
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The Sari Shopby Rupa BajwaISBN 039332690X (0-393-32690-X)
Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
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The Second Summer of the Sisterhoodby Ann BrasharesISBN 0385731051 (0-385-73105-1)
Softcover, Random House Childrens Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Second Summer of the Sisterhood'Book summary:Teens who loved Ann Brashares's The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (2001) will cheer its equally riveting sequel The Second Summer of the Sisterhood. As in the first novel, four teen girls who have known each other since birth (their moms shared a pregnancy aerobics class) further forge their bond of friendship through a pair of thrift-store jeans that magically, impossibly, fits them all perfectly.
Like the summer before, Carmen, Bridget, Tibby, and Lena share their individual adventures with the Pants collective, creating an engaging, kaleidoscopic narrative of four voices. This summer, Tibby attends a film program in Virginia and Bridget (Bee), whose mother has died, impulsively jets off to Alabama to get reacquainted with her estranged grandmother. Lovely Lena tries to protect herself from the heartbreak of loving her long-distance Greek god boyfriend Kostos, and Carmen deals (poorly) with her mother dating again and having the nerve to borrow the Pants!
The Second Summer, while breezy and fun to read, deals seriously with love lost and found, death, and finding the courage to live honestly. The teens' lessons are often painful, but the Sisterhood prevails. Quotations from luminaries such as Charlie Brown ("Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter quite like unrequited love") to Nelson Mandela ("There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered") open each chapter and cleverly reflect the novel's many moods. (Ages 12 and older) --Karin Snelson [via]
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- The Second Summer of the Sisterhood: ISBN 0385729340 (0-385-72934-0)
Hardcover, Delacorte Pr - The Second Summer of the Sisterhood: ISBN 0385908520 (0-385-90852-0)
Hardcover, Delacorte Pr - The Second Summer of the Sisterhood: ISBN 0385732430 (0-385-73243-0)
Hardcover, Random House Children's Books - The Second Summer of the Sisterhood: ISBN 0385731051 (0-385-73105-1)
Softcover, Random House Childrens Books
- The Second Summer of the Sisterhood: ISBN 0385729340 (0-385-72934-0)
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The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Familyby Mary S. LovellISBN 0393324141 (0-393-32414-1)
Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Family'Book summary:This is the Story of a close, loving family splintered by the violent ideologies of Europe between the wars. Jessica was a Communist; Debo became the Duchess of Devonshire; Nancy, the eldest, was one of the best-selling novelists of her day; the ethereally beautiful Diana, married to the Fascist leader Sir Oswald Mosley and imprisoned without trial through most of World War II, was the most hated woman in England; Unity Valkyrie Mitford, born in the mining town of Swastika, Alaska, would become obsessed with Adolf Hitler, whom she met on at least 140 occasions. When war was declared between England and Germany, she shot herself in the head.
The Mitfords had style, presence, and were extremely gifted: four would go on to write best-selling books. Above all, they were funny -- hilariously and often mercilessly so. In this wise, evenhanded, and generous book, Mary Lovell captures the vitality and extraordinary drama of a family that took the twentieth century by the throat and became, in some respects, its victims. [via]
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Skipping Christmasby John GrishamISBN 0385508417 (0-385-50841-7)
Hardcover, Bantam Dell Pub Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Skipping Christmas'Book summary:John Grisham turns a satirical eye on the overblown ritual of the festive holiday season, and the result is Skipping Christmas, a modest but funny novel about the tyranny of December 25. Grisham's story revolves around a typical middle-aged American couple, Luther and Nora Krank. On the first Sunday after Thanksgiving they wave their daughter Blair off to Peru to work for the Peace Corps, and they suddenly realize that "for the first time in her young and sheltered life Blair would spend Christmas away from home."
Luther Krank sees his daughter's Christmas absence as an opportunity. He estimates that "a year earlier, the Luther Krank family had spent $6,100 on Christmas," and have "precious little to show for it." So he makes an executive decision, telling his wife, friends, and neighbors that "we won't do Christmas." Instead, Luther books a 10-day Caribbean cruise. But things start to turn nasty when horrified neighbors get wind of the Krank's subversive scheme and besiege the couple with questions about their decision.
Grisham builds up a funny but increasingly terrifying picture of how this tight-knit community turns on the Kranks, who find themselves under increasing pressure to conform. As the tension mounts, readers may wonder whether they will manage to board their plane on Christmas day. Skipping Christmas is Grisham-lite, with none of the serious action or drama of his legal thrillers, but a funny poke at the craziness of Christmas. --Jerry Brotton, Amazon.co.uk [via]
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Some People, Some Other Place: A Novelby J. California CooperISBN 0385496834 (0-385-49683-4)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Some People, Some Other Place: A Novel'Book summary:For generations Eula Toos family has been making a journey North, year after year, step by painful step; and shes determined to be the one to make it all the way to Chicago. In and out of school, taking care of her fourteen brothers and sisters, she can see no way out. But when a new family burden threatens to overwhelm her, she at last leaves for the city, only to find that her life gets even tougher.
Ranging from the Deep South at the turn of the century, to a diverse contemporary town filled with people striving for a better life, Some People, Some Other Place is J. California Cooper at her irresistible, surprising best. [via]More editions of Some People, Some Other Place: A Novel:
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The Stolen Childby Keith DonohueISBN 0385516169 (0-385-51616-9)
Hardcover, Bantam Dell Pub Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Stolen Child'Book summary:Inspired by the W.B. Yeats poem that tempts a child from home to the waters and the wild, The Stolen Child is a modern fairy tale narrated by the child Henry Day and his double.On a summer night, Henry Day runs away from home and hides in a hollow tree. There he is taken by the changelings-an unaging tribe of wild children who live in darkness and in secret. They spirit him away, name him Aniday, and make him one of their own. Stuck forever as a child, Aniday grows in spirit, struggling to remember the life and family he left behind. He also seeks to understand and fit in this shadow land, as modern life encroaches upon both myth and nature.In his place, the changelings leave a double, a boy who steals Henry's life in the world. This new Henry Day must adjust to a modern culture while hiding his true identity from the Day family. But he can't hide his extraordinary talent for the piano (a skill the true Henry never displayed), and his dazzling performances prompt his father to suspect that the son he has raised is an imposter. As he ages the new Henry Day becomes haunted by vague but persistent memories of life in another time and place, of a German piano teacher and his prodigy. Of a time when he, too, had been a stolen child. Both Henry and Aniday obsessively search for who they once were before they changed places in the world.The Stolen Child is a classic tale of leaving childhood and the search for identity. With just the right mix of fantasy and realism, Keith Donohue has created a bedtime story for adults and a literary fable of remarkable depth and strange delights. [via]
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Texas Rich: The Hunt Dynasty, from the Early Oil Days Through the Silver Crashby Harry HurtISBN 039301391X (0-393-01391-X)
Hardcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
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Total Recallby Sara ParetskyISBN 0385313667 (0-385-31366-7)
Hardcover, Dell Publishing
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Total Recall'Book summary:Chicago private investigator V.I. Warshawski returns in an exceptionally well-plotted thriller that focuses attention on V.I.'s longtime friend Lotty Herschel. In a handful of chapters that punctuate the contemporary narrative, the Austrian-born physician tells her own story. More than just a device to draw the many threads of this complex novel together, Lotty's history illuminates the depth and complexity of a character that readers of Sara Paretsky's many books-- like V.I. herself--only thought they knew.
At a conference on the recovery of Holocaust assets, a man named Paul Radbuka surfaces, claiming to be part of the past that Lotty left buried in war-torn Europe half a century ago. The aging Lotty is emotionally shattered. She has never talked to V.I. about those years following her escape from Austria--her youth as an orphaned teenager in England and the brilliant medical career that ultimately brought her to America. But Radbuka's claims have such a dramatic effect on her that V.I. feels compelled to investigate him. Radbuka's early life in a concentration camp has recently come back to him, aided by the ministrations of a recovered-memory therapist. Now he's demanding that Lotty and her friend Max, another émigré, acknowledge his connection to them, something neither is prepared to do. Is Radbuka really who he claims to be? And if he's the impostor Lotty says he is, why is she so terrified of him?
V.I.'s efforts to pin down Radbuka's identity dovetail with another case, that of a client with a beef against an insurance company that's trying to keep the state legislature from passing a Holocaust Asset Recovery Act. It's a little too tidy for coincidence, but since it gives Paretsky a chance to show off her knowledge of Chicago politics, the reader is delighted to accept it. While it's Lotty's voice that brings the dead to life and the past into the present, it's V.I.'s dogged perseverance and abiding affection for her friend that drive this powerful, brilliantly executed novel to a conclusion. This is one of Paretsky's strongest outings in years. --Jane Adams [via]
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Turning Points: Treating Families in Transition and Crisisby Frank PittmanISBN 0393700402 (0-393-70040-2)
Hardcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
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The Wake of the Windby J. California CooperISBN 0385487053 (0-385-48705-3)
Softcover, Anchor Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Wake of the Wind'Book summary:A dramatic and thought-provoking novel of one family's triumph in the face of the hardships and challenges of the post-Civil War South.
The Wake of the Wind, J. California Cooper's third novel, is her most penetrating look yet at the challenges that generations of African Americans have had to overcome in order to carve out a home for themselves and their families. Set in Texas in the waning years of the Civil War, the novel tells the dramatic story of a remarkable heroine, Lifee, and her husband, Mor. When Emancipation finally comes to Texas, Mor, Lifee, and the extended family they create from other slaves who are also looking for a home and a future, set out in search of a piece of land they can call their own. In the face of constant threats, they manage not only to survive but to succeed--their crops grow, their children thrive, they educate themselves and others. Lifee and Mor pass their intelligence, determination, and talents along to their children, the next generation to surge forward. At once tragic and triumphant, this is an epic story that captures with extraordinary authenticity the most important struggle of the last hundred years. [via] 
Women in Families: A Framework for Family Therapyby Monica McGoldrickISBN 039330776X (0-393-30776-X)
Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
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The World to Comeby Dara HornISBN 0393329062 (0-393-32906-2)
Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
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