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books tagged “modern fiction”
books tagged “modern fiction”
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Alice's Adventures in Wonderlandby Lewis CarrollISBN 0020423500 (0-02-042350-0)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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All American Girlby Meg CabotISBN 0060294698 (0-06-029469-8)
Hardcover, HarperCollins Canada, Limited
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› Find signed collectible books: 'All American Girl'Book summary:TOP TEN REASONS
Samantha Madison
IS IN DEEP TROUBLE10. Her big sister is the most popular girl in school
9. Her little sister is a certified genius
8. She's in love with her big sister's boyfriend
7. She got caught selling celebrity portraits in school
6. And now she's being forced to take art classes
5. She's just saved the president of the United States from an assassination attempt
4. So the whole world thinks she is a hero
3. Even though Sam knows she is far, far from being a hero
2. And now she's been appointed teen ambassador to the UNAND THE NUMBER-ONE REASON
Sam's LIFE IS OVER?1.The president's son just might be in love with her
[via]-
The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodentsby Terry PratchettISBN 0060012358 (0-06-001235-8)
Softcover, Harpercollins Childrens Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents'Book summary:One rat, popping up here and there, squeaking loudly, and taking a bath in the cream, could be a plague all by himself. After a few days of this, it was amazing how glad people were to see the kid with his magical rat pipe. And they were amazing when the rats followed hint out of town.
They'd have been really amazed if they'd ever found out that the rats and the piper met up with a cat somewhere outside of town and solemnly counted out the money.
The Amazing Maurice runs the perfect Pied Piper scam. This streetwise alley cat knows the value of cold, hard cash and can talk his way into and out of anything. But when Maurice and his cohorts decide to con the town of Bad Blinitz, it will take more than fast talking to survive the danger that awaits. For this is a town where food is scarce and rats are hated, where cellars are lined with deadly traps, and where a terrifying evil lurks beneath the hunger-stricken streets....
Set in Terry Pratchett's widely popular Discworld, this masterfully crafted, gripping read is both compelling and funny. When one of the world's most acclaimed fantasy writers turns a classic fairy tale on its head, no one will ever look at the Pied Piper -- or rats -- the same way again!
[via]More editions of The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents:
- The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents: ISBN 0060012331 (0-06-001233-1)
Hardcover, HarperCollins Canada, Limited - The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents: ISBN 006001234X (0-06-001234-X)
Hardcover, HarperCollins Canada, Limited - Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents: ISBN 0060012358 (0-06-001235-8)
Softcover, Harpercollins Childrens Books
- The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents: ISBN 0060012331 (0-06-001233-1)
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Anansi Boys: Library Editionby Neil GaimanISBN 0060515198 (0-06-051519-8)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Anansi Boys: Library Edition'Book summary:One of fiction's most audaciously original talents, Neil Gaiman now gives us a mythology for a modern age -- complete with dark prophecy, family dysfunction, mystical deceptions, and killer birds. Not to mention a lime.
Anansi Boys
God is dead. Meet the kids.When Fat Charlie's dad named something, it stuck. Like calling Fat Charlie "Fat Charlie." Even now, twenty years later, Charlie Nancy can't shake that name, one of the many embarrassing "gifts" his father bestowed -- before he dropped dead on a karaoke stage and ruined Fat Charlie's life.
Mr. Nancy left Fat Charlie things. Things like the tall, good-looking stranger who appears on Charlie's doorstep, who appears to be the brother he never knew. A brother as different from Charlie as night is from day, a brother who's going to show Charlie how to lighten up and have a little fun ... just like Dear Old Dad. And all of a sudden, life starts getting very interesting for Fat Charlie.
Because, you see, Charlie's dad wasn't just any dad. He was Anansi, a trickster god, the spider-god. Anansi is the spirit of rebellion, able to overturn the social order, create wealth out of thin air, and baffle the devil. Some said he could cheat even Death himself.
Returning to the territory he so brilliantly explored in his masterful New York Times bestseller, American Gods, the incomparable Neil Gaiman offers up a work of dazzling ingenuity, a kaleidoscopic journey deep into myth that is at once startling, terrifying, exhilarating, and fiercely funny -- a true wonder of a novel that confirms Stephen King's glowing assessment of the author as "a treasure-house of story, and we are lucky to have him."
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Autumn of the Patriarchby Gabriel Garcia MarquezISBN 0060114193 (0-06-011419-3)
Hardcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Autumn of the Patriarch'Book summary:"Majestic . . . Superb . . . a stunning portrait of the archetype, the pathological fascist tyrant. Garcia Marquez is as exorbitant as Melville and Dostoyevsky."New York Times Book Review [via]
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Bel Cantoby Ann PatchettISBN 0060188731 (0-06-018873-1)
Hardcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Bel Canto'Book summary:In an unnamed South American country, a world-renowned soprano sings at a birthday party in honor of a visiting Japanese industrial titan. His hosts hope that Mr. Hosokawa can be persuaded to build a factory in their Third World backwater. Alas, in the opening sequence, just as the accompanist kisses the soprano, a ragtag band of 18 terrorists enters the vice-presidential mansion through the air conditioning ducts. Their quarry is the president, who has unfortunately stayed home to watch a favorite soap opera. And thus, from the beginning, things go awry.
Among the hostages are not only Hosokawa and Roxane Coss, the American soprano, but an assortment of Russian, Italian, and French diplomatic types. Reuben Iglesias, the diminutive and gracious vice president, quickly gets sideways of the kidnappers, who have no interest in him whatsoever. Meanwhile, a Swiss Red Cross negotiator named Joachim Messner is roped into service while vacationing. He comes and goes, wrangling over terms and demands, and the days stretch into weeks, the weeks into months.
With the omniscience of magic realism, Ann Patchett flits in and out of the hearts and psyches of hostage and terrorist alike, and in doing so reveals a profound, shared humanity. Her voice is suitably lyrical, melodic, full of warmth and compassion. Hearing opera sung live for the first time, a young priest reflects:
Never had he thought, never once, that such a woman existed, one who stood so close to God that God's own voice poured from her. How far she must have gone inside herself to call up that voice. It was as if the voice came from the center part of the earth and by the sheer effort and diligence of her will she had pulled it up through the dirt and rock and through the floorboards of the house, up into her feet, where it pulled through her, reaching, lifting, warmed by her, and then out of the white lily of her throat and straight to God in heaven.
Joined by no common language except music, the 58 international hostages and their captors forge unexpected bonds. Time stands still, priorities rearrange themselves. Ultimately, of course, something has to give, even in a novel so imbued with the rich imaginative potential of magic realism. But in a fractious world, Bel Canto remains a gentle reminder of the transcendence of beauty and love. --Victoria Jenkins [via]More editions of Bel Canto:
The Birthday of the World and Other Storiesby Ursula K. Le GuinISBN 0060509066 (0-06-050906-6)
Softcover, Perennial
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Bluest Eyeby Toni MorrisonISBN 0030850746 (0-03-085074-6)
Hardcover, Henry Holt & Co
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Bluest Eye'Book summary:Oprah Book Club® Selection, April 2000: Originally published in 1970, The Bluest Eye is Toni Morrison's first novel. In an afterword written more than two decades later, the author expressed her dissatisfaction with the book's language and structure: "It required a sophistication unavailable to me." Perhaps we can chalk up this verdict to modesty, or to the Nobel laureate's impossibly high standards of quality control. In any case, her debut is nothing if not sophisticated, in terms of both narrative ingenuity and rhetorical sweep. It also shows the young author drawing a bead on the subjects that would dominate much of her career: racial hatred, historical memory, and the dazzling or degrading power of language itself.
Set in Lorain, Ohio, in 1941, The Bluest Eye is something of an ensemble piece. The point of view is passed like a baton from one character to the next, with Morrison's own voice functioning as a kind of gold standard throughout. The focus, though, is on an 11-year-old black girl named Pecola Breedlove, whose entire family has been given a cosmetic cross to bear:
You looked at them and wondered why they were so ugly; you looked closely and could not find the source. Then you realized that it came from conviction, their conviction. It was as though some mysterious all-knowing master had given each one a cloak of ugliness to wear, and they had each accepted it without question.... And they took the ugliness in their hands, threw it as a mantle over them, and went about the world with it.
There are far uglier things in the world than, well, ugliness, and poor Pecola is subjected to most of them. She's spat upon, ridiculed, and ultimately raped and impregnated by her own father. No wonder she yearns to be the very opposite of what she is--yearns, in other words, to be a white child, possessed of the blondest hair and the bluest eye.This vein of self-hatred is exactly what keeps Morrison's novel from devolving into a cut-and-dried scenario of victimization. She may in fact pin too much of the blame on the beauty myth: "Along with the idea of romantic love, she was introduced to another--physical beauty. Probably the most destructive ideas in the history of human thought. Both originated in envy, thrived in insecurity, and ended in disillusion." Yet the destructive power of these ideas is essentially colorblind, which gives The Bluest Eye the sort of universal reach that Morrison's imitators can only dream of. And that, combined with the novel's modulated pathos and musical, fine-grained language, makes for not merely a sophisticated debut but a permanent one. --James Marcus [via]
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Byzantium: Library Editionby Stephen R. LawheadISBN 0060176040 (0-06-017604-0)
Hardcover, Zondervan
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A Changed Manby Francine ProseISBN 0060196742 (0-06-019674-2)
Hardcover, Harpercollins
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The Complete C.S. Lewis Signature Classicsby C. S. LewisISBN 0060506083 (0-06-050608-3)
Hardcover, Harper San Francisco
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Complete C.S. Lewis Signature Classics'Book summary:For the first time ever, these seven essential volumes by C. S. Lewis are available in a single edition. This remarkable book presents the classic works Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, The Great Divorce, The Problem of Pain, Miracles, A Grief Observed, and Lewis's prophetic examination of universal values, The Abolition of Man. Beautiful and timeless, this is a vital collection by one of the greatest literary figures of the twentieth century. Lewis reached a vast audience during his lifetime, and books such as Mere Christianity and The Screwtape Letters continue to be regarded as among the best spiritual writing of all time. With his uncanny grasp of human nature, Lewis offers a refreshing antidote to the modern world's consumerism and moral relativism. This new edition of his most celebrated books highlights Lewis's compassion for humanity and his relevance for the twenty-first century. [via]
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The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway : The Finca Vigia Editionby Ernest Hemingway, John Hemingway, Patrick Hemingway, Gregory H. Hemingway, Scribner, Charles, IIIISBN 0020332009 (0-02-033200-9)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway : The Finca Vigia Edition'Book summary:The Finca Vigia edition of The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway collects for the first time the complete work of the acknowledged master of the genre. This landmark collection includes the entire contents of The First Forty-Nine, the first omnibus volume of Hemingway's works publishedin 1939, as well as 14 stories published subsequently in other books or magazines and seven works published for the first time in the hardcover edition. [via]
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Confessions of an Ugly Stepsisterby Gregory Maguire, Bill SandersonISBN 0060392827 (0-06-039282-7)
Hardcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister'Book summary:Gregory Maguire's chilling, wonderful retelling of Cinderella is a study in contrasts. Love and hate, beauty and ugliness, cruelty and charity--each idea is stripped of its ethical trappings, smashed up against its opposite number, and laid bare for our examination. Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister begins in 17th-century Holland, where the two Fisher sisters and their mother have fled to escape a hostile England. Maguire's characters are at once more human and more fanciful than their fairy-tale originals. Plain but smart Iris and her sister, Ruth, a hulking simpleton, are dazed and terrified as their mother, Margarethe, urges them into the strange Dutch streets. Within days, purposeful Margarethe has secured the family a place in the home of an aspiring painter, where for a short time, they find happiness.
But this is Cinderella, after all, and tragedy is inevitable. When a wealthy tulip speculator commissions the painter to capture his blindingly lovely daughter, Clara, on canvas, Margarethe jumps at the chance to better their lot. "Give me room to cast my eel spear, and let follow what may," she crows, and the Fisher family abandons the artist for the upper-crust Van den Meers.
When Van den Meer's wife dies during childbirth, the stage is set for Margarethe to take over the household and for Clara to adopt the role of "Cinderling" in order to survive. What follows is a changeling adventure, and of course a ball, a handsome prince, a lost slipper, and what might even be a fairy godmother. In a single magic night, the exquisite and the ugly swirl around in a heated mix:
Everything about this moment hovers, trembles, all their sweet, unreasonable hopes on view before anything has had the chance to go wrong. A stepsister spins on black and white tiles, in glass slippers and a gold gown, and two stepsisters watch with unrelieved admiration. The light pours in, strengthening in its golden hue as the sun sinks and the evening approaches. Clara is as otherworldly as the Donkeywoman, the Girl-Boy. Extreme beauty is an affliction...
But beyond these familiar elements, Maguire's second novel becomes something else altogether--a morality play, a psychological study, a feminist manifesto, or perhaps a plain explanation of what it is to be human. Villains turn out to be heroes, and heroes disappoint. The story's narrator wryly observes, "In the lives of children, pumpkins can turn into coaches, mice and rats into human beings. When we grow up, we learn that it's far more common for human beings to turn into rats." --Therese Littleton [via]More editions of Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister:
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Cosetteby Laura Kalpakian, Victor HugoISBN 0060172223 (0-06-017222-3)
Hardcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Cosette'Book summary:Written by an authority on Victor Hugo's classic novel, this sequel chronicles the life of Cosette, the adopted daughter of Jean Valjean, and her romance with Marius Pontmercy, while revolution continues to envelop France. 100,000 first printing. $100,000 ad/promo. [via]
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Darkness at Noonby Arthur KoestlerISBN 0025652109 (0-02-565210-9)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster, Incorporated
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Daughter of Fortune: A Novelby Isabel Allende, Margaret Sayers PedenISBN 006019491X (0-06-019491-X)
Hardcover, HarperCollins Canada, Limited
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Daughter of Fortune: A Novel'Book summary:Oprah Book Club® Selection, February 2000: Until Isabel Allende burst onto the scene with her 1985 debut, The House of the Spirits, Latin American fiction was, for the most part, a boys' club comprising such heavy hitters as Gabriel García Márquez, Jorge Luis Borges, and Mario Vargas Llosa. But the Chilean Allende shouldered her way in with her magical realist multi-generational tale of the Trueba family, followed it up with four more novels and a spate of nonfiction, and has remained in a place of honor ever since. Her sixth work of fiction, Daughter of Fortune, shares some characteristics with her earlier works: the canvas is wide, the characters are multi-generational and multi-ethnic, and the protagonist is an unconventional woman who overcomes enormous obstacles to make her way in the world. Yet one cannot accuse Allende of telling the same story twice; set in the mid-1800s, this novel follows the fortunes of Eliza Sommers, Chilean by birth but adopted by a British spinster, Rose Sommers, and her bachelor brother, Jeremy, after she is abandoned on their doorstep.
"You have English blood, like us," Miss Rose assured Eliza when she was old enough to understand. "Only someone from the British colony would have thought to leave you in a basket on the doorstep of the British Import and Export Company, Limited. I am sure they knew how good-hearted my brother Jeremy is, and felt sure he would take you in. In those days I was longing to have a child, and you fell into my arms, sent by God to be brought up in the solid principles of the Protestant faith and the English language."
The family servant, Mama Fresia, has a different point of view, however: "You, English? Don't get any ideas, child. You have Indian hair, like mine." And certainly Eliza's almost mystical ability to recall all the events of her life would seem to stem more from the Indian than the Protestant side.As Eliza grows up, she becomes less tractable, and when she falls in love with Joachin Andieta, a clerk in Jeremy's firm, her adoptive family is horrified. They are even more so when a now-pregnant Eliza follows her lover to California where he has gone to make his fortune in the 1849 gold rush. Along the way Eliza meets Tao Chi'en, a Chinese doctor who saves her life and becomes her closest friend. What starts out as a search for a lost love becomes, over time, the discovery of self; and by the time Eliza finally catches up with the elusive Joachin, she is no longer sure she still wants what she once wished for. Allende peoples her novel with a host of colorful secondary characters. She even takes the narrative as far afield as China, providing an intimate portrait of Tao Chi'en's past before returning to 19th-century San Francisco, where he and Eliza eventually fetch up. Readers with a taste for the epic, the picaresque, and romance that is satisfyingly complex will find them all in Daughter of Fortune. --Margaret Prior [via]
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The Daughter of Timeby Josephine TeyISBN 0020545509 (0-02-054550-9)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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The Death of Vishnuby Manil SuriISBN 006000438X (0-06-000438-X)
Softcover, Perennial
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Death of Vishnu'Book summary:The title of Manil Suri's first novel gets right to the point. His protagonist, having purchased the right to sleep on the ground-floor landing of a Bombay apartment house, slips slowly from a coma into death. As this aging alcoholic takes leave of the earth, his neighbors surround him, arguing over who gave Vishnu a few dried chapatis, who called the doctor for him, and who will pay for the ambulance to cart him away. Meanwhile, the hero of The Death of Vishnu is lost in memories. Drifting through increasingly vivid scenes from his past, he recalls his relatively rare snatches of love and joy--and especially his romance with Padmini, a self-involved prostitute. On one particular day, it seems, he stole one of his employer's cars and drove his love interest to the honeymoon town of Lonavala, where he showered her with gifts and finally lifted her veil to kiss her like a bride:
Then the absurdity of the situation strikes him. The preposterousness of his images, the foolishness of his feelings, the comicality of chasing currents that skim across Padmini's face. He thinks how absurd this whole trip has been, how absurd is the presence of the two of them in Lonavala, how absurd is the scenery itself that stretches before them. He thinks of poor, ridiculous Mr. Jalal, waiting back in Bombay for his Fiat, and of how Padmini will react when he asks her to buy them petrol so they can get back.
Vishnu also recalls his secret passion for Kavita Asrani, the beautiful teenage daughter of one of the families for whom he works. Given the protagonist's focus on his hapless love life, the scope of Suri's dazzling debut may appear narrow. However, the apartment house upon whose floor Vishnu spends his final hours functions as a microcosm of Indian society. It helps to know even a smattering about Hindu mythology or India's religious conflicts. But even if you don't, there is plenty to relish in The Death of Vishnu, with its comical, richly drawn characters, loving attention to the details of everyday life, and provocative exploration of destiny and free will. --Regina Marler [via]More editions of The Death of Vishnu:
Dinotopia Lostby Alan Dean FosterISBN 0060280042 (0-06-028004-2)
Hardcover, HarperCollins Canada, Limited
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The Dispossessedby Ursula K. Le GuinISBN 006051275X (0-06-051275-X)
Softcover, Perennial
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Dispossessed'Book summary:The ideas of Shevek, a brilliant physicist from the anarchist world of Anarres are being stifled by jealous colleagues. So he goes to the hell-planet Urras, seeking a different kind of freedom - and finds himself embroiled in deadly intrigue and bloody revoulution. [via]
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Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhoodby Rebecca WellsISBN 0060502258 (0-06-050225-8)
Softcover, HarperCollins Publishers
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood'Book summary:a big, blowzy romp through the rainbow eccentricities of three generations of crazy bayou debutantes."-atlanta journal-constitution"a very entertaining and, ultimately, deeply moving novel about the complex bonds between mother and daughter."-washington post"mary mccarthy, anne rivers siddons, and a host of others have portrayed the power and value of female friendships, but no one has done it with more grace, charm, talent, and power than rebecca wells."-richmond times-dispatchthe incomparable #1 new york times bestseller-a book that reigned at the top of the list for an remarkable sixty-eight weeks-rebecca wells's divine secrets of the ya-ya sisterhood is a classic of southern women's fiction to be read and reread over and over again. A poignant, funny, outrageous, and wise novel about a lifetime friendship between four southern women, divine secrets of the ya-ya sisterhood brilliantly explores the bonds of female friendship, the often-rocky relationship between mothers and daughters, and the healing power of humor and love, in a story as fresh and uplifting as when it was first published a decade and a half ago. If you haven't yet met the ya-yas, what are you waiting for [via]
More editions of Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood:
- Divine Secrets of the Ya-ya Sisterhood: A Novel: ISBN 0060173289 (0-06-017328-9)
Hardcover, Harpercollins - Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood: ISBN 006019345X (0-06-019345-X)
Hardcover, HarperCollins Canada, Limited - Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood: ISBN 0060502258 (0-06-050225-8)
Softcover, HarperCollins Publishers
- Divine Secrets of the Ya-ya Sisterhood: A Novel: ISBN 0060173289 (0-06-017328-9)
The Eleven Million Mile High Dancerby Carol HillISBN 0030706998 (0-03-070699-8)
Hardcover, Henry Holt & Co
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The Exorcistby William Peter BlattyISBN 0060103655 (0-06-010365-5)
Hardcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Exorcist'Book summary:When originally published in 1971, The Exorcist became not only a bestselling literary phenomenon, but one of the most frightening and controversial novels ever written. (When the author adapted his book to the screen two years later, it then became one of the most terrifying movies ever made.) Blatty fictionalized the true story of a child's demonic possession in the 1940s. The deceptively simple story focuses on Regan, the 11-year-old daughter of a movie actress residing in Washington, D.C.; the child apparently is possessed by an ancient demon. It's up to a small group of overwhelmed yet determined humans to somehow rescue Regan from this unspeakable fate. Purposefully raw and profane, this novel still has the extraordinary ability to literally shock us into forgetting that it is "just a story." The Exorcist remains a truly unforgettable reading experience. Blatty published a sequel, Legion, in 1983. --Stanley Wiater [via]
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Five Quarters of the Orangeby Joanne HarrisISBN 0060198133 (0-06-019813-3)
Hardcover, HarperCollins Publishers
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Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wondersby Neil GaimanISBN 0060515228 (0-06-051522-8)
Hardcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders'Book summary:A prodigiously imaginative collection.
New York Times Book Review, Editors Choice
Dazzling tales from a master of the fantastic.
Washington Post Book WorldFragile Things is a sterling collection of exceptional tales from Neil Gaiman, multiple award-winning (the Hugo, Bram Stoker, Newberry, and Eisner Awards, to name just a few), #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Graveyard Book, Anansi Boys, Coraline, and the groundbreaking Sandman graphic novel series. A uniquely imaginative creator of wonders whose unique storytelling genius has been acclaimed by a host of literary luminaries from Norman Mailer to Stephen King, Gaimans astonishing powers are on glorious displays in Fragile Things. Enter and be amazed!
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From the Heart of the Countryby J. M. CoetzeeISBN 006010841X (0-06-010841-X)
Hardcover, Harpercollins
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Gertrude and Aliceby Diana SouhamiISBN 004440848X (0-04-440848-X)
Softcover, New York Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Gertrude and Alice'Book summary:"Twentieth century literature is Gertrude Stein," or at least so thought Gertrude Stein. The sentiment was shared by Alice B. Toklas--her longtime companion--and few others. Stein and Toklas met in 1907 in Paris and famously shared their lives from that day forth, souls in perfect complement--two magnificently eccentric and idiosyncratic women who became a legendary entity. They were photographed by Man Ray and Cecil Beaton, painted and feted by Picasso, and visited by writers such as Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Eliot. Theirs is a fascinating story, and they have found a wonderful and oddly sympathetic chronicler in Diana Souhami, whose book The Trials of Radclyffe Hall met with critical acclaim, and who proves the perfect foil to the "Steins." Her own touch of genius is to barely consider Gertrude's grand oeuvre, sparing the rod to an already spoilt child and freeing her readership from the unpalatable fare she generally served up (by contrast, Alice was a dedicated and talented cook).
Literary success came late to Stein: she was 57 when The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas was published. After Stein's death in 1946, Toklas became the classic devoted author's widow, until her own death, just short of her 90th birthday. She was buried alongside Stein in Paris's Père Lachaise cemetery, though her inscription is on the back of the tombstone, as ever behind her lover. Souhami's two lives, refreshingly stripped of biographical dead wood, positively crackle with high-powered gossip and bristle with bitchy anecdotes, though her laconic touch is never asleep to touching cadences and wonderful absurdities. As a writer, a "literary cubist" who once tried to give up nouns, Stein is more to be admired than respected. As a life force, a mover and shaker, and as a partner to Toklas, she was massively successful. Their couple's life together was their greatest creation, and it's done justice by the talented Souhami's glorious account. Gertrude and Alice would have hated it. --David Vincent, Amazon.co.uk [via]
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Going Postalby Terry PratchettISBN 0060502932 (0-06-050293-2)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Going Postal'Book summary:Arch-swindler Moist Van Lipwig never believed his confidence crimes were hanging offenses -- until he found himself with a noose tightly around his neck, dropping through a trapdoor, and falling into ... a government job?
By all rights, Moist should have met his maker. Instead, it's Lord Vetinari, supreme ruler of Ankh-Morpork, who promptly offers him a job as Postmaster. Since his only other option is a nonliving one, Moist accepts the position -- and the hulking golem watchdog who comes along with it, just in case Moist was considering abandoning his responsibilities prematurely.
Getting the moribund Postal Service up and running again, however, may be a near-impossible task, what with literally mountains of decades-old undelivered mail clogging every nook and cranny of the broken-down post office building; and with only a few creaky old postmen and one rather unstable, pin-obsessed youth available to deliver it. Worse still, Moist could swear the mail is talking to him. Worst of all, it means taking on the gargantuan, money-hungry Grand Trunk clacks communication monopoly and its bloodthirsty piratical head, Mr. Reacher Gilt.
But it says on the building neither rain nor snow nor glo m of ni t ... Inspiring words (admittedly, some of the bronze letters have been stolen), and for once in his wretched life Moist is going to fight. And if the bold and impossible are what's called for, he'll do it -- in order to move the mail, continue breathing, get the girl, and specially deliver that invaluable commodity that every human being (not to mention troll, dwarf, and, yes, even golem) requires: hope.
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Guided Tours of Hellby Francine ProseISBN 006008085X (0-06-008085-X)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Guided Tours of Hell'Book summary:These two novellas about Americans abroad combine to create one wallop of a book. As they confront the legacy of history and their own shortcomings, Prose's characters are obsessively self-aware, even narcissistically petty--just like we are. In the title story, Landau, a struggling playwright, engages in a vanity-laden struggle of wills with a charismatic Holocaust-survivor in the cafeteria of a death camp-turned-tourist-attraction during a Kafka symposium. In the second novella "Three Pigs in Five Days," Nina is sent to Paris by her boss and ex-lover to write an article about a whorehouse-turned-hotel. While there, she is plagued by the demons of her erotic past as well as the romantic ghosts of the dysfunctional relationships of dead Parisian artists and their mistresses. Always harrowing, occasionally baroque, and tinged with hilarity, Guided Tours of Hell is an early candidate for the best fiction of the year. [via]
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Heat Waveby Penelope LivelyISBN 0060174765 (0-06-017476-5)
Hardcover, Harpercollins
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The Hobbit or There and Back Againby J. R. R. TolkienISBN 0048233862 (0-04-823386-2)
Hardcover, Unwin Hyman
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Hobbit or There and Back Again'Book summary:Poor Bilbo Baggins! An unassuming and rather plump hobbit (as most of these small, furry- footed people tend to be ), Baggins finds himself unwittingly drawn into adventure by a wizard named Gandalf and 13 dwarves bound for the Lonely Mountain, where a dragon named Smaug hordes a stolen treasure. Before he knows what is happening, Baggins finds himself on the road to danger. Wizards, dwarves and dragons may seem the stuff of children's fairy tales, but The Hobbit is in a class of its own--light-hearted enough for younger readers, yet with a dark edge guaranteed to intrigue an older audience. In the best tradition of the archetypal hero's quest, Bilbo Baggins sets out on his fateful journey a callow, untested soul and returns--tempered by hardship, danger and loss--a better man--er, hobbit.
This book is the predecessor to Tolkien's masterpiece, The Lord of the Rings, and though that trilogy can be thoroughly enjoyed without first reading The Hobbit, much that happens in the later novels is foreshadowed here. A word of caution, however: as Bilbo discovers early on, travel and adventure are addictive things; embark on this journey to the Lonely Mountain with Tolkien's reluctant hero, and you might not be able to stop there. And the road taken to the distant mountains of Mordor in the ensuing trilogy is an even more perilous one. [via]
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I'll Take You Thereby Joyce Carol OatesISBN 0060501189 (0-06-050118-9)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'I'll Take You There'Book summary:In her bewitching 30th novel, I'll Take You There, Joyce Carol Oates returns again to neurotic female post-adolescence. The unnamed narrator attends an upstate New York university in the early 1960s. In those times of tightly prescribed femininity, she joins a sorority in a bald attempt to become part of the sisterhood of normalcy. It doesn't work. She reads philosophy, she works for a living, she's asexual, she's an orphan, she's a Jew: "I was a freak in the midst of their stunning, stampeding, blazing female normality." Booted from the sorority, she falls hard for a thirtyish black philosophy student who seems to her to live on a higher plane than the rest of humanity. In the final section, she is called west to the deathbed of someone she thought was lost to her forever. Oates brings together some of her strongest trademark qualities: She writes her character's life as though it were a fairy tale. She sells her material, bringing dramatic tension to the very first page: "They would claim I destroyed Mrs. Thayer.... Yet others would claim that Mrs. Thayer destroyed me." And she writes with tender care about the intellectual life of her young protagonist. Some find Oates's obsession with nascent womanhood claustrophobic, but in this heroine she finds a vein of integrity and intellectual probity peculiar to those who are not quite adult. Most writers treat college life as comedy or romance. Oates, on the other hand, seriously explores an age when we are most terribly ourselves. She seems to find something deeply human and pleasingly dramatic in this time wedged between childhood and adulthood. --Claire Dederer [via]
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Ignoranceby Milan Kundera, Linda AsherISBN 0060002107 (0-06-000210-7)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Ignorance'Book summary:Bypassing the question of whether you can ever go home again, Milan Kundera's Ignorance tackles instead what happens when you actually get there. Ignorance is the story of two Czechs who meet by chance while traveling back to their homeland after 20 years in exile. Irena, who fled the country in 1968 with her now-deceased husband Martin, returns to Prague only to find coldness and indifference on the part of her former friends. Josef, who emigrated after the Russian invasion, is back in Prague to fulfill a wish of his beloved late wife. As fate would have it, the two have met before in their former lives, and the before-skirted passionate encounter is now destined to transpire. However, as in the story of Odysseus, which this novel so deliberately parallels, every homecoming brings with it a conflicting set of emotions so powerful that one has to question whether the voyage is really worth the pain. Expertly tackling the philosophical and emotional themes of nostalgia, memory, love, loss, and endurance, Kundera continues to astound readers with his masterful ability to understand and articulate issues so central to the human condition. --Gisele Toueg [via]
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Imajica: La Reconciliacionby Clive BarkerISBN 0060179228 (0-06-017922-8)
Hardcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Imajica: La Reconciliacion'Book summary:From master storyteller Clive Barker comes an epic tale of myth, magic, and forbidden passion-complete with new illustrations and a new Appendix.Imajica is an epic beyond compare: vast in conception, obsessively detailed in execution, and apocalyptic in its resolution. At its heart lies the sensualist and master art forger, Gentle, whose life unravels when he encounters Judith Odell, whose power to influence the destinies of men is vaster than she knows, and Pie 'oh' pah, an alien assassin who comes from a hidden dimension.That dimension is one of five in the great system called Imajica. They are worlds that are utterly unlike our own, but are ruled, peopled, and haunted by species whose lives are intricately connected with ours. As Gentle, Judith, and Pie 'oh' pah travel the Imajica, they uncover a trail of crimes and intimate betrayals, leading them to a revelation so startling that it changes reality forever. [via]
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Kissing the Witchby Emma DonoghueISBN 0060275766 (0-06-027576-6)
Hardcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Kissing the Witch'Book summary:At age 28 Emma Donoghue is already a marvel. The author of two critically acclaimed novels, a fascinating work of lesbian history, and a series of successful stage plays, Donoghue can apparently do anything. With Kissing the Witch, a collection of revisionist fairy tales, she has proven once again that she is a great writer. In these 13 interconnected tales she finds new meanings in old stories: Cinderella runs off with her fairy godmother, Snow White's awakening is more erotic than romantic, and Rapunzel discovers that her freedom, although not her salvation, is in her hair. Donoghue writes about women, some lesbians and some not, and makes them the center of her fantastical world. The bold, daring boys of the Grimm tales are not here, but in their place are vibrant, knowing, and brave women and girls who are finding out what the world holds for them. [via]
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Kissing the Witch: Old Tales in New Skinsby Emma DonoghueISBN 0060275758 (0-06-027575-8)
Hardcover, HarperCollins Canada, Limited
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Ladies Almanack:Showing Their Signs and Their Tides: Their Moons and Their Changes; the Seasons as It Is with Them; Their Eclipses and Equinoxes; as Well as a Full Record of Diurnal and Nocturnal Distempersby Djuna BarnesISBN 0060102217 (0-06-010221-7)
Hardcover, Harper & Row
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Ladies Almanack:Showing Their Signs and Their Tides: Their Moons and Their Changes; the Seasons as It Is with Them; Their Eclipses and Equinoxes; as Well as a Full Record of Diurnal and Nocturnal Distempers'More editions of Ladies Almanack:Showing Their Signs and Their Tides: Their Moons and Their Changes; the Seasons as It Is with Them; Their Eclipses and Equinoxes; as Well as a Full Record of Diurnal and Nocturnal Distempers:
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The Lady and the Unicornby Tracy ChevalierISBN 0007140908 (0-00-714090-8)
Hardcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Lady and the Unicorn'Book summary:story [via]
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Last Chance Saloonby Marian KeyesISBN 0060086246 (0-06-008624-6)
Softcover, Perennial
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Last Chance Saloon'Book summary:Desperately single thirtysomething men and women populate Keyes's breezy novel. Childhood friends Tara, Katherine, and Fintan muddle along, dealing with the indignities and inconveniences we all face--and then some. Tara's perfectly horrible, freeloading boyfriend Thomas watches her diet like a hawk and remarks cruelly on the size of her posterior, comparing her unfavorably to younger, thinner women. Katherine is a professional success, but her personal life is nonexistent. Every one of her prior relationships--six in all--has ended disastrously, with Katherine getting dumped. Each time, she retreats further and further into her shell, until her most intimate relationship is with her remote control. Fashion industry insider Fintan has found true love with his Italian boyfriend, Sandro, but a health crisis threatens their happiness. Tara, Katherine, and Fintan, as well as their quirky cast of friends (people with names like Lorcan and Mandii), live, love, and learn the hard way, the only way they can. Not quite as obsessive as Bridget Jones and that damn diary of hers, Keyes manages to convey a painfully accurate portrayal of what it means to be single today, tempered by a few of life's less humiliating and more important lessons, like the value of true friendship. Funny and irreverent, Keyes's Last Chance Saloon is a terrific vacation read. --Alison Trinkle [via]
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The Lathe of Heavenby Ursula K. Le GuinISBN 0060512741 (0-06-051274-1)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Lathe of Heaven'Book summary:Ursula K. Le Guin is one of science fiction's greatest writers. She is also an acclaimed author of powerful and perceptive nonfiction, fantasy, and literary fiction. She has received many honors, including six Nebula and five Hugo Awards, the National Book Award, the Pushcart Prize, the Newbery, the Pilgrim, the Tiptree, and citations by the American Library Association. She has written over a dozen highly regarded novels and story collections. Her SF masterworks are The Left Hand of Darkness (1969), The Dispossessed (1974), and The Lathe of Heaven (1971).
George Orr has dreams that come true--dreams that change reality. He dreams that the aunt who is sexually harassing him is killed in a car crash, and wakes to find that she died in a wreck six weeks ago, in another part of the country. But a far darker dream drives George into the care of a psychotherapist--a dream researcher who doesn't share George's ambivalence about altering reality.
The Lathe of Heaven is set in the sort of worlds that one would associate with Philip K. Dick, but Ms. Le Guin's treatment of the material, her plot and characterization and concerns, are more akin to the humanistic, ethically engaged, psychologically nuanced fiction of Theodore Sturgeon. The Lathe of Heaven is an insightful and chilling examination of total power, of war and injustice and other age-old problems, of changing the world, of playing God. --Cynthia Ward [via]
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The Left Hand of Darknessby Ursula K. Le GuinISBN 0060125748 (0-06-012574-8)
Hardcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Left Hand of Darkness'Book summary:Genly Ai is an emissary from the human galaxy to Winter, a lost, stray world. His mission is to bring the planet back into the fold of an evolving galactic civilization, but to do so he must bridge the gulf between his own culture and prejudices and those that he encounters. On a planet where people are of no gender--or both--this is a broad gulf indeed. The inventiveness and delicacy with which Le Guin portrays her alien world are not only unusual and inspiring, they are fundamental to almost all decent science fiction that has been written since. In fact, reading Le Guin again may cause the eye to narrow somewhat disapprovingly at the younger generation: what new ground are they breaking that is not already explored here with greater skill and acumen? It cannot be said, however, that this is a rollicking good story. Le Guin takes a lot of time to explore her characters, the world of her creation, and the philosophical themes that arise.
If there were a canon of classic science fiction, The Left Hand of Darkness would be included without debate. Certainly, no science fiction bookshelf may be said to be complete without it. But the real question: is it fun to read? It is science fiction of an earlier time, a time that has not worn particularly well in the genre. The Left Hand of Darkness was a groundbreaking book in 1969, a time when, like the rest of the arts, science fiction was awakening to new dimensions in both society and literature. But the first excursions out of the pulp tradition are sometimes difficult to reread with much enjoyment. Rereading The Left Hand of Darkness, decades after its publication, one feels that those who chose it for the Hugo and Nebula awards were right to do so, for it truly does stand out as one of the great books of that era. It is immensely rich in timeless wisdom and insight.
The Left Hand of Darkness is science fiction for the thinking reader, and should be read attentively in order to properly savor the depth of insight and the subtleties of plot and character. It is one of those pleasures that requires a little investment at the beginning, but pays back tenfold with the joy of raw imagination that resonates through the subsequent 30 years of science fiction storytelling. Not only is the bookshelf incomplete without owning it, so is the reader without having read it. --L. Blunt Jackson [via]
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Little Altars Everywhereby Rebecca WellsISBN 0060517794 (0-06-051779-4)
Softcover, HarperCollins Canada, Limited
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Little Altars Everywhere'Book summary:We are swinging high flying way up, higher than in real life. And when I look down, I see all the ordinary stuff--our brick house, the porch the tool shed, the oil drum barbecue pit, the clothesline, the chinaberry tree. But they are all lit up from inside so their everyday selves have holy sparks in them, and if only people could see those sparks, they'd go and kneel in front of them and pray and just feel good. Somehow the whole world looks like little altars everywhere." "Little Altars Everywhere" is a companion to Rebecca Wells' celebrated novel "Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood." Originally published in 1992, "Little Altars" introduces Sidda, Vivi, the rest of the spirited walker clan, and the indomitable Ya-Yas. It is now available for the first time in hardcover.Told in alternating voices of Vivi and her husband, Big Shep, along with Sidda, her siblings Little Shep, Lulu, Baylor, and Cheney and Willetta--the black couple who impact the Walkers' lives in ways they never fully comprehend-- "Little Altars" embraces nearly 30 years of life on the plantation in Thorton, Louisiana, where the cloying air of the bayou and a web of family secrets at once shelter, trap and define an utterly original community of souls. Who can resist such cadences of Sidda Walker and her flamboyant, secretive mother, ViVi? Here the young Sidda--a precocious reader and an eloquent observer of the fault lines that divide her family--leads us on a mischievous adventures at Our Lady of Divine Compassion parochial school and beyond. A Catholic girl of pristine manners, devotion, and provocative ideas, Sidda is the very essence of childhood sorrow and joy and sorrow.In a series ofLuminous reminiscences, we also hear Little Shep's stories of his eccentric grandmother, Lulu's matter-of-fact account of her shoplifting skills, and Baylor's memories of Vivi and her friends, the Ya-Yas. [via]
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The Livingby Annie DillardISBN 0060168706 (0-06-016870-6)
Hardcover, Harpercollins
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The Lord of the Ringsby J. R. R. TolkienISBN 0048230871 (0-04-823087-1)
Hardcover, Allen and Unwin
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Lord of the Rings'Book summary:Let's face it--even some adults find Tolkien's mammoth fantasy a daunting mouthful but children now have this special seven-book box set of The Lord of The Rings to make the epic tale just that bit easier to chew on. Split into its seven constituent parts, these slim volumes tell the ageless tale of young Frodo's quest to destroy The Ring and defeat the forces of evil. It's beautifully presented in a black presentation box with the movie logo and an illustration on the side and the spines of the books also form the movie logo. A contemporary look and plenty of "cool appeal" will grab kids' interest and ensure they don't miss out on reading this classic of the genre. --Jonathan Weir [via]
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Man and Boyby Tony ParsonsISBN 0006512135 (0-00-651213-5)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Man and Boy'Book summary:A fabulously engaging and exciting novel about a man who has to learn about life and love the hard way. Harry Silver has it all. A successful job in TV, a gorgeous wife, a lovely child. And in one moment of madness, he chucks it all away. Man and Boy is the story of how he comes to terms with his life and achieves a degree of self-respect, bringing up his son alone and, gradually, learning what words like love and family really mean. It is very well written, pacy, funny, and heart-breakingly moving. [via]
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Maybe the Moonby Armistead MaupinISBN 0060165529 (0-06-016552-9)
Hardcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Maybe the Moon'Book summary:Maybe the Moon, Armistead Maupin's first novel since ending his bestselling Tales of the City series, is the audaciously original chronicle of Cadence Roth -- Hollywood actress, singer, iconoclast and former Guiness Book record holder as the world's shortest woman.
All of 31 inches tall, Cady is a true survivor in a town where -- as she says -- "you can die of encouragement." Her early starring role as a lovable elf in an immensely popular American film proved a major disappointment, since moviegoers never saw the face behind the stifling rubber suit she was required to wear. Now, after a decade of hollow promises from the Industry, she is reduced to performing at birthday parties and bat mitzvahs as she waits for the miracle that will finally make her a star.
In a series of mordantly funny journal entries, Maupin tracks his spunky heroine across the saffron-hazed wasteland of Los Angeles -- from her all-too-infrequent meetings with agents and studio moguls to her regular harrowing encounters with small children, large dogs and human ignorance. Then one day a lanky piano player saunters into Cady's life, unleashing heady new emotions, and she finds herself going for broke, shooting the moon with a scheme so harebrained and daring that it just might succeed. Her accomplice in the venture is her best friend, Jeff, a gay waiter who sees Cady's struggle for visibility as a natural extension of his own war against the Hollywood Closet.
As clear-eyed as it is charming, Maybe the Moon is a modern parable about the mythology of the movies and the toll it exacts from it participants on both sides of the screen. It is a work that speaks to the resilience of the human spirit from a perspective rarely found in literature. [via]
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Microserfsby Douglas CouplandISBN 0060391480 (0-06-039148-0)
Hardcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Microserfs'Book summary:Microserfs is not about Microsoft--it's about programmers who are searching for lives. A hilarious but frighteningly real look at geek life in the '90's, Coupland's book manifests a peculiar sense of how technology affects the human race and how it will continue to affect all of us. Microserfs is the hilarious journal of Dan, an ex-Microsoft programmer who, with his coder comrades, is on a quest to find purpose in life. This isn't just fodder for techies. The thoughts and fears of the not-so-stereotypical characters are easy for any of us to relate to, and their witty conversations and quirky view of the world make this a surprisingly thought-provoking book.
" ... just think about the way high-tech cultures purposefully protract out the adolescence of their employees well into their late 20s, if not their early 30s," muses one programmer. "I mean, all those Nerf toys and free beverages! And the way tech firms won't even call work 'the office,' but instead, 'the campus.' It's sick and evil." [via]
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Mirror Mirrorby Gregory MaguireISBN 006039384X (0-06-039384-X)
Hardcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Mirror Mirror'Book summary:A brilliant achievement.
Boston Herald
Entertaining&profound&.A novel for adults that unearths our buried fascination with the primal fears and truths fairy tales contain.
Christian Science MonitorGregory Maguire, the acclaimed author who re-imagined a darker, more dangerous Land of Oz in his New York Times bestselling series The Wicked Years, offers a brilliant reinvention of the timeless Snow White fairy tale: Mirror Mirror. Setting his story amid the cultural, political and artistic whirlwind of Renaissance Italyand casting the notorious Lucrezia Borgia as the Evil QueenMaguire and Mirror Mirror will enthrall a wide array of book lovers ranging from adult fans of Harry Potter to readers of the sophisticated stories of Angela Carter.
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Monstrous Regimentby Terry PratchettISBN 0060013168 (0-06-001316-8)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Monstrous Regiment'Book summary:War has come to Discworld . . . again.
And, to no one's great surprise, the conflict centers on the small, insufferably arrogant, strictly fundamentalist duchy of Borogravia, which has long prided itself on it's ability to beat up on its neighbors for even the tiniest imagined slight. This time, however, it's Borogravia that's getting its long overdue comeuppance, which has left the country severely drained of young men.
Ever since her brother Paul marched off to battle a year ago, Polly Perks has been running The Duchess,her family's inn -- even though the revered national deity Nuggan has decreed that female ownership of a business is an Abomination (with, among others, oysters, rocks, and the color blue). To keep The Duchess in the family, Polly must find her missing sibling. So she cuts off her hair, dons masculine garb, and sets out to join him in this man's army.
Despite her rapid mastery of belching, scratching, and other macho habits (and aided by a well-placed pair of socks), Polly is afraid that someone will immediately see through her disguise; a fear that proves groundless when the recruiting officer, the legendary and seemingly ageless Sergeant Jackrum, accepts her without question. Or perhaps the sergeant is simply too desperate for fresh cannon fodder to discriminate -- which would explain why a vampire, a troll, a zombie, a religious fanatic, and two uncommonly close "friends" are also eagerly welcomed into the fighting fold. But marching off with little (read: no) training, Polly (now called "Oliver") finds herself wondering about the myriad peculiarities of her new brothers-in-arms. It would appear that Polly "Ozzer" Perks is not the only grunt with a secret. There is no time to dwell on such matters, however.Duty calls. The battlefield beckons. There's a tide to be turned.
And sometimes -- in war as in everything else -- the best man for the job is a woman.
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Night Watchby Terry PratchettISBN 0060013125 (0-06-001312-5)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Night Watch'Book summary:The new Discworld novel Night Watch has the power and energy that characterizes Terry Pratchett at his occasional best, as well as the wild surreal humour he always gives us. Sam Vimes, running hero of the Guards sequence, finds himself cast back in time to the Ankh-Morpork of his youth--a much nastier city, with an actively deranged Patrician and a sadistic secret police--and finding himself filling in for Keel, the tough honest copper who teaches the young Vimes everything he knows. And, more worryingly, who dies heroically in the insurrection Vimes knows to be imminent. With a psychopath from his own time rising in the vile ranks of the Cable Street Unmentionables complicating things, Vimes has to ensure that history takes its course so that he will have the right future to go back to, and to keep his younger self alive--this is Pratchett's plotting at its most thoroughly constructed and wonderfully devious. Ankh-Morpork has for a long time been one of the most thoroughly imagined cities in fantasy--here Pratchett gives us a fascinating gloomy glimpse of its past and of the younger selves of some of his best-loved characters, and of the brief-lived People's Republic of Treacle-Mine Road. --Roz Kaveney [via]
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Patrickby Stephen R. LawheadISBN 006001282X (0-06-001282-X)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Patrick'Book summary:From Arthurian legend to ancient Byzantium, from richly imagined worlds to breathtakingly re-created historical epochs, the novels of Stephen R. Lawhead weave a splendid tapestry of mysticism, heroism, adventure, revelation, and faith. Now the acclaimed author brings to magnificent life one of the most revered and remarkable figures of Celtic legend.
He enters the world as Succat Morgannwg, born of a noble Welsh family in the golden age of Britain. But at age sixteen he is violently torn from his family and home by Irish raiders and sold as a slave to a brutal king. So begin seven years of toil, abuse, and servitude -- and an education that will ultimately turn his path toward the extraordinary.
Rescued by the king's druids from almost certain death, young Succat soon learns the arts of healing and song, and the mystical ways of a secretive order whose teachings tantalize and tempt, hinting at a wisdom and faith deeper than he can imagine.
Yet he will not rest until he sheds the yoke of slavery and returns to his homeland across the sea. When the miracle of opportunity appears, he leaps -- pursuing his dream of freedom through horrific war and shattering tragedy, through great love and greater loss -- from a decimated Wales to the bloody battlefields of Gaul to the fading majesty of Rome. In the twilight of a once supreme empire, he is transformed yet again by a divine hand and a passionate vision of "Truth against the world." And from a friend and mentor, he receives the name that will become legend: Patricius.
A magnificent epic that sweeps across decades and continents, Stephen R. Lawhead's Patrick is an exhilarating adventure based on exhaustive research and newly emergent historical discovery -- a masterful and unforgettable portrait of a slave, soldier, lover, hero, and saint . . . a man whose life mirrored the cataclysmic world into which he was born, and whose memory will outlast the ages.
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The People You Meet and the Books You Readby Og MandinoISBN 0006483216 (0-00-648321-6)
Hardcover, Circles Intl
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The People You Meet and the Books You Read'Book summary:First of an exciting new trilogy from the author of Byzantium, The Iron Lance is set at the time of the first Crusade in 1099. Amidst visions of the ancient past, a 19th century Scottish lawyer glimpses the harrowing pilgrimage of an ancestor...In the year 1095, Pope Urban II declares war on the infidel. Kings, princes, and lords throughout Europe take up the cross and rush to join the Crusade. Murdo Ranulfson is left behind to guard his family's interests in the remote Orkney Isles while his father and brothers join the fight to win Jerusalem. But when all the family's lands and possessions are confiscated, Murdo follows the Crusade with the hope of finding his father and redeeming their land. His epic journey leads him to the heart of the civilized world, where the Emperor Alexius and the Lords of the West are engaged in a battle of wills that threatens the survival of the Holy Roman Empire. Steeped in heroism, treachery and the clamour of battle, The Iron Lance begins an epic trilogy of a Scottish family fighting for its existence and its faith during the age of the Great Crusades. [via]
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Planet Of Exileby Ursula Le GuinISBN 0060125594 (0-06-012559-4)
Hardcover, Harper & Row
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Poisonwood Bibleby Barbara KingsolverISBN 0060512822 (0-06-051282-2)
Softcover, HarperCollins Canada, Limited
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Poisonwood Bible: A Novel'Book summary:Oprah Book Club® Selection, June 2000: As any reader of The Mosquito Coast knows, men who drag their families to far-off climes in pursuit of an Idea seldom come to any good, while those familiar with At Play in the Fields of the Lord or Kalimantaan understand that the minute a missionary sets foot on the fictional stage, all hell is about to break loose. So when Barbara Kingsolver sends missionary Nathan Price along with his wife and four daughters off to Africa in The Poisonwood Bible, you can be sure that salvation is the one thing they're not likely to find. The year is 1959 and the place is the Belgian Congo. Nathan, a Baptist preacher, has come to spread the Word in a remote village reachable only by airplane. To say that he and his family are woefully unprepared would be an understatement: "We came from Bethlehem, Georgia, bearing Betty Crocker cake mixes into the jungle," says Leah, one of Nathan's daughters. But of course it isn't long before they discover that the tremendous humidity has rendered the mixes unusable, their clothes are unsuitable, and they've arrived in the middle of political upheaval as the Congolese seek to wrest independence from Belgium. In addition to poisonous snakes, dangerous animals, and the hostility of the villagers to Nathan's fiery take-no-prisoners brand of Christianity, there are also rebels in the jungle and the threat of war in the air. Could things get any worse?
In fact they can and they do. The first part of The Poisonwood Bible revolves around Nathan's intransigent, bullying personality and his effect on both his family and the village they have come to. As political instability grows in the Congo, so does the local witch doctor's animus toward the Prices, and both seem to converge with tragic consequences about halfway through the novel. From that point on, the family is dispersed and the novel follows each member's fortune across a span of more than 30 years.
The Poisonwood Bible is arguably Barbara Kingsolver's most ambitious work, and it reveals both her great strengths and her weaknesses. As Nathan Price's wife and daughters tell their stories in alternating chapters, Kingsolver does a good job of differentiating the voices. But at times they can grate--teenage Rachel's tendency towards precious malapropisms is particularly annoying (students practice their "French congregations"; Nathan's refusal to take his family home is a "tapestry of justice"). More problematic is Kingsolver's tendency to wear her politics on her sleeve; this is particularly evident in the second half of the novel, in which she uses her characters as mouthpieces to explicate the complicated and tragic history of the Belgian Congo.
Despite these weaknesses, Kingsolver's fully realized, three-dimensional characters make The Poisonwood Bible compelling, especially in the first half, when Nathan Price is still at the center of the action. And in her treatment of Africa and the Africans she is at her best, exhibiting the acute perception, moral engagement, and lyrical prose that have made her previous novels so successful. --Alix Wilber [via]
Polaroids from the Deadby Douglas CouplandISBN 0060391499 (0-06-039149-9)
Hardcover, Harpercollins
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Rachel's Holidayby Marian KeyesISBN 0060090383 (0-06-009038-3)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Rachel's Holiday'Book summary:The fast lane is much too slow for Rachel Walsh. And Manhattan is the perfect place for a young Irish female to overdo everything. But Rachel's love of a good time is about to land her in the emergency room. It will also cost her a job and the boyfriend she adores. When her loving family hustles her back home and checks her into Ireland's answer to the Betty Ford Clinic, Rachel is hopeful. Perhaps it will be lovely-spa treatments, celebrities, that kind of thing. Instead, she finds a lot of group therapy, which leads her, against her will, to some important self-knowledge. She will also find something that all women like herself fear: a man who might actually be good for her. [via]
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Rebecca's Taleby Sally BeaumanISBN 0006391893 (0-00-639189-3)
Softcover, Harpercollins Canada
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Rebecca's Tale'Book summary:512 pages, last night I dreamt Iwent to Manderley again. [via]
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The Screwtape Lettersby C. S. LewisISBN 0020867409 (0-02-086740-9)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Screwtape Letters'Book summary:This adaptation of C.S. Lewis's biting satire received a 1999 Grammy nomination for best spoken-word performance, and it's easy to see why--the story fits the format perfectly. It's relatively brief (the unabridged reading takes a mere four hours), and contains only one character--the demon Screwtape, who writes letters to his novice nephew Wormwood, instructing him on how to best tempt his "patient" (a wayward soul on earth) into the bosom of "our Lord below."
Obviously, the book wasn't written with former Monty Python John Cleese in mind, but it's hard to imagine a better Screwtape. Cleese's voice provides the perfect vehicle for Lewis's dry, razor-edged wit. His uncanny comic timing and ability to milk each phrase for maximum effect betray an infectious enthusiasm for the story. It's clear that he's having a great time reading, and it's impossible not to laugh along with him. This inspired pairing of two of the 20th century's greatest wits makes for a meditation on the dark side of spiritual guidance that's as relevant and funny today as it was in Lewis's war-torn England. (Running time: 4 hours, 3 cassettes) --Andrew Neiland [via]
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Separate Peaceby John KnowlesISBN 0025648500 (0-02-564850-0)
Hardcover, Macmillan Pub Co
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Silmarillionby J. R. R. Tolkien, Christopher Tolkien, Ted NasmithISBN 0007173024 (0-00-717302-4)
Hardcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Silmarillion'Book summary:Although The Silmarillion takes place in the same imaginary world as J.J.R Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, and was originally published four years after the author's death and over two decades after the former book, it is set much earlier, in the First Age of the World. The tales and the book which reads as a fusion between a story collection and historical chronicle, are a matter of legend even to the characters of The Lord of the Rings:
In the beginning Eru, the One, who in the Elvish tongue is named Ilúvatar, made the Ainur of his thought; and they made a great Music before him
Tolkien wrote the heart of this material very early in his career, and continued to work on it throughout his life. It fell to his son, Christopher Tolkien, to edit it into book form, and such proved the unquenchable public appetite that he subsequently oversaw 12 volumes of The History of Middle-Earth. This edition features 20 highly evocative colour plates by Ted Nasmith, themselves worth the price of admission, while reinforcing the sense of a historical work are genealogical tables, an extensive index, appendix and colour map. Far removed from the genial style of The Hobbit, this is Tolkien at his most formal, his prose austere, poetically beautiful, his storytelling capturing the epic scale, high drama and melancholy wonder of myth. These stories of elves and heroes and old gods are quite literally the foundation of the entire modern fantasy-publishing revival, and are therefore essential reading. --Gary S. Dalkin [via] -
Small Godsby Terry PratchettISBN 0060177500 (0-06-017750-0)
Hardcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Small Gods'Book summary:Discworld is an extragavanza--among much else, it has billions of gods. "They swarm as thick as herring roe," writes Terry Pratchett in Small Gods, the 13th book in the series. Where there are gods galore, there are priests, high and low, and... there are novices. Brutha is a novice with little chance to become a priest--thinking does not come easily to him, although believing does. But it is to Brutha that the great god Om manifests, in the lowly form of a tortoise. --Blaise Selby [via]
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Sterkarm Handshakeby Susan PriceISBN 0060289597 (0-06-028959-7)
Hardcover, Harpercollins Childrens Books
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A Suitable Boyby Vikram SethISBN 0060170123 (0-06-017012-3)
Hardcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Suitable Boy'Book summary:While a widowed mother agonizes over her daughter's future, the newly independent India of the early 1950s struggles through a time of great crisis when its varied cultures clash. 100,000 first printing. [via]
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Tales of the Cityby Armistead MaupinISBN 0060186690 (0-06-018669-0)
Hardcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Tales of the City'Book summary:Since 1976, Maupin's Tales of the City has etched itself upon the hearts and minds of its readers, both straight and gay. From a groundbreaking newspaper serial in the San Francisco Chronicle to a bestselling novel to a critically acclaimed PBS series, Tales (all six of them) contains the universe--if not in a grain of sand, then in one apartment house. [via]
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Thief of Timeby Terry PratchettISBN 0060199563 (0-06-019956-3)
Hardcover, HarperCollins Publishers
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Thief of Time'Book summary:It was only a matter of time before Terry Pratchett would win the minds and hearts of America. Already a worldwide sensation and Great Britain's indisputable number one author, this intellectually audacious and effortlessly hilarious writer sold more hardcover books in the United Kingdom during the previous decade than any other living novelist. His novels have reigned supreme on English bestseller lists since before the Iron Lady left Downing Street, and though some things have changed since then, Pratchett, thankfully, continues to pen insightfully irreverent tales set in a world a lot like our own -- only different.
Celebrated as one of the keenest practitioners of satire and parody at work today -- alongside Kurt Vonnegut, Douglas Adams, and Carl Hiaasen -- Terry Pratchett commands a loyal and ever-increasing number of readers and appreciative critics from coast to coast in our own country. As he skewers all aspects of modern life -- and especially our sacred cows -- Pratchett makes us laugh and challenges us to think. And he's at his sharpest, most uproarious best in Thief of Time.
Everybody wants more time, which is why on Discworld its management is entrusted to the experts: the venerable Monks of History, who store it and pump it from where it's wasted, like underwater (after all, how much time does a codfish really need?) to places like cities, where harried citizens are forever lamenting, "Oh where does the time go?"
And while everyone always talks about slowing down, one clever soul is about to stop. Stop time, that is. For good. Going against everything known (and the nine tenths of everything that remains unknown), a young horologist has been commissioned to build the world's first truly accurate clock. It falls to History Monk Lu-Tze and his apprentice Lobsang Ludd to find the timepiece and stop it before it starts. For if the Perfect Clock starts ticking, Time -- as we know it -- will stop. And then the trouble will really begin.
A superb send-up of science and philosophy, religion and death (after all, isn't that where time stops, for most of us, anyway?), and a host of other timely topics, Thief of Time provides the perfect opportunity to kick back and unwind. So don't put off till tomorrow what you could do today. Read Thief of Time. Right this minute. Because tomorrow may not come. (You'll have to read the book to find out why. This is a Terry Pratchett novel, after all.)
Tick ...
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Things Fall Apartby Chinua AchebeISBN 0030554381 (0-03-055438-1)
Hardcover, Holt Rinehart & Winston
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Things Fall Apart'Book summary:One of Chinua Achebe's many achievements in his acclaimed first novel, Things Fall Apart, is his relentlessly unsentimental rendering of Nigerian tribal life before and after the coming of colonialism. First published in 1958, just two years before Nigeria declared independence from Great Britain, the book eschews the obvious temptation of depicting pre-colonial life as a kind of Eden. Instead, Achebe sketches a world in which violence, war, and suffering exist, but are balanced by a strong sense of tradition, ritual, and social coherence. His Ibo protagonist, Okonkwo, is a self-made man. The son of a charming ne'er-do-well, he has worked all his life to overcome his father's weakness and has arrived, finally, at great prosperity and even greater reputation among his fellows in the village of Umuofia. Okonkwo is a champion wrestler, a prosperous farmer, husband to three wives and father to several children. He is also a man who exhibits flaws well-known in Greek tragedy:
Okonkwo ruled his household with a heavy hand. His wives, especially the youngest, lived in perpetual fear of his fiery temper, and so did his little children. Perhaps down in his heart Okonkwo was not a cruel man. But his whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and of weakness. It was deeper and more intimate than the fear of evil and capricious gods and of magic, the fear of the forest, and of the forces of nature, malevolent, red in tooth and claw. Okonkwo's fear was greater than these. It was not external but lay deep within himself. It was the fear of himself, lest he should be found to resemble his father.
And yet Achebe manages to make this cruel man deeply sympathetic. He is fond of his eldest daughter, and also of Ikemefuna, a young boy sent from another village as compensation for the wrongful death of a young woman from Umuofia. He even begins to feel pride in his eldest son, in whom he has too often seen his own father. Unfortunately, a series of tragic events tests the mettle of this strong man, and it is his fear of weakness that ultimately undoes him.Achebe does not introduce the theme of colonialism until the last 50 pages or so. By then, Okonkwo has lost everything and been driven into exile. And yet, within the traditions of his culture, he still has hope of redemption. The arrival of missionaries in Umuofia, however, followed by representatives of the colonial government, completely disrupts Ibo culture, and in the chasm between old ways and new, Okonkwo is lost forever. Deceptively simple in its prose, Things Fall Apart packs a powerful punch as Achebe holds up the ruin of one proud man to stand for the destruction of an entire culture. --Alix Wilber [via]
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The Thorn Birdsby Colleen McCulloughISBN 0060129565 (0-06-012956-5)
Hardcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Thorn Birds'Book summary:Colleen McCullough's sweeping saga of dreams, struggles, dark passions, and forbidden love in the Australian Outback has enthralled readers the world over. This is the chronicle of three generations of Clearys, ranchers carving lives from a beautiful, hard land while contending with the bitterness, frailty, and secrets that penetrate their family. Most of all, it is the story of only daughter Meggie and her lifelong relationship with the haunted priest Father Ralph de Bricassartan intense joining of two hearts and souls that dangerously oversteps sacred boundaries of ethics and dogma.
A poignant love story, a powerful epic of struggle and sacrifice, a celebration of individuality and spirit, Colleen McCullough's acclaimed masterwork remains a monumental literary achievementa landmark novel to be cherished and read again and again.
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The Tie That Bindsby Kent HarufISBN 0030719798 (0-03-071979-8)
Hardcover, Henry Holt & Co
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A Tree Grows in Brooklynby Betty SmithISBN 0060001941 (0-06-000194-1)
Hardcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Tree Grows in Brooklyn'Book summary:Francie Nolan, avid reader, penny-candy connoisseur, and adroit observer of human nature, has much to ponder in colorful, turn-of-the-century Brooklyn. She grows up with a sweet, tragic father, a severely realistic mother, and an aunt who gives her love too freely--to men, and to a brother who will always be the favored child. Francie learns early the meaning of hunger and the value of a penny. She is her father's child--romantic and hungry for beauty. But she is her mother's child, too--deeply practical and in constant need of truth. Like the Tree of Heaven that grows out of cement or through cellar gratings, resourceful Francie struggles against all odds to survive and thrive. Betty Smith's poignant, honest novel created a big stir when it was first published over 50 years ago. Her frank writing about life's squalor was alarming to some of the more genteel society, but the book's humor and pathos ensured its place in the realm of classics--and in the hearts of readers, young and old. (Ages 10 and older) --Emilie Coulter [via]
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Unfinished Tales of Numenor and Middle-Earthby J. R. R. Tolkien, Christopher TolkienISBN 0048231797 (0-04-823179-7)
Hardcover, Harpercollins
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Unlocking the Air and Other Storiesby Ursula K. Le GuinISBN 0060172606 (0-06-017260-6)
Hardcover, Harpercollins
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War With the Newtsby Karel Capek, Ewald OsersISBN 0048233080 (0-04-823308-0)
Softcover, Unwin Paperbacks
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Watership Downby Richard George AdamsISBN 0027000303 (0-02-700030-3)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Watership Down'Book summary:Watership Down has been a staple of high-school English classes for years. Despite the fact that it's often a hard sell at first (what teenager wouldn't cringe at the thought of 400-plus pages of talking rabbits?), Richard Adams's bunny-centric epic rarely fails to win the love and respect of anyone who reads it, regardless of age. Like most great novels, Watership Down is a rich story that can be read (and reread) on many different levels. The book is often praised as an allegory, with its analogs between human and rabbit culture (a fact sometimes used to goad skeptical teens, who resent the challenge that they won't "get" it, into reading it), but it's equally praiseworthy as just a corking good adventure.
The story follows a warren of Berkshire rabbits fleeing the destruction of their home by a land developer. As they search for a safe haven, skirting danger at every turn, we become acquainted with the band and its compelling culture and mythos. Adams has crafted a touching, involving world in the dirt and scrub of the English countryside, complete with its own folk history and language (the book comes with a "lapine" glossary, a guide to rabbitese). As much about freedom, ethics, and human nature as it is about a bunch of bunnies looking for a warm hidey-hole and some mates, Watership Down will continue to make the transition from classroom desk to bedside table for many generations to come. --Paul Hughes [via]
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The Wee Free Menby Terry PratchettISBN 0060012382 (0-06-001238-2)
Softcover, Harper Torch
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Wee Free Men'Book summary:When you have an author as good as Terry Pratchett writing for children, you expect that the result will be a novel of great invention, assured comic timing and a generally all-round highly readable fantasy tour de force. Readers of The Wee Free Men will not be disappointed. After winning the prestigious Carnegie Medal award for his previous story of Discworld for younger readers, The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents, Pratchett has followed up with another irresistibly entertaining adventure.
Miss Perspicacia Tick, a witch of some renown, is worried about a ripple in the walls of the universe--probably another world making contact. Which is not good. This errant activity is centred on some chalk country--where traditionally good witches simply do not grow well. Fortunately, Miss Tiffany Aching of Home Farm on The Chalk, nine years old, misunderstood and yearning for excitement, wants to be a witch and has just proved herself to be of great potential by whacking a big Green Monster from the river with a huge frying pan while using her annoying younger brother as bait. Miss Tick is impressed. So, after travelling to the chalky downs at once and dispensing some stop gap advice to Tiffany about holding the fort until she gets back with more help, Miss Tick is off.
Any hesitation Tiffany may have had about the seriousness of the situation expires when the Queen of the fairies kidnaps her younger brother. With the help of a talking frog, loaned by Miss Tick, and an army of thieving, warmongering, nippy, boozy wee free men called the Nac Mac Feegle (who used to work for the Queen but rebelled), Tiffany sets off rescue her kin.
There's humour at every turn, and the situations that follow are both wonderfully dramatic and preposterously unreal. Pratchett really is the master of his genre and it's difficult to imagine a more entertaining read. (Age 10 and over) --John McLay [via]
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La Hija de la Fortunaby Isabel Allende, Margaret Sayers PedenISBN 0060194928 (0-06-019492-8)
Hardcover, HarperCollins Canada, Limited
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› Find signed collectible books: 'La Hija de la Fortuna'Book summary:Eliza Sommers es una joven chilena que vive en Valparaiso en 1849, el ano que se descubre oro en California.
Su amante, Joaquin Andieta, parte hacia el norte decidido a encontrar fortuna, y ella decide seguirlo. El viaje infernal, escondida en la cala de un velero, y la busqueda de su amante en una tierra de hombres solos y prostitutas atraidos por la fiebre del oro, transforman a la joven inocente en una mujer fuera de lo comun. Eliza recibe ayuda y afecto de Tao Chi'en, un medico chino, quien la conducira de la mano en un itinerario memorable por los misterios y contradicciones de la condicion humana.
Hija de la fortuna es un retrato papitante de una epoca marcada por la violencia y la codicia en la cual los protagonistas rescatan el amor, la amistad, la compasion y el valor. En esta su mas ambiciosa novel, Isabel Allende presenta un universo fascinante, poblado de entranables personajes que, como tantos otros de la autora, se quedan para siempre en la memoria y el corazon de los lectores.
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