books tagged “Relationships”

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  • 1984
    by George Orwell, Mike Dean
    ISBN 0582777313 (0-582-77731-3)
    Softcover, Addison-Wesley Longman Ltd

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    Orwell's classic novel tells the story of a world where thoughts and actions are controlled by the all-seeing Big Brother. When Winston Smith rebels and searches for the truth he learns a painful lesson about his world and the people in it. Also a powerful film directed by Michael Radford. [via]

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  • After You'd Gone
    by Maggie O'Farrell
    ISBN 0670894486 (0-670-89448-6)
    Hardcover, Penguin USA

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    A young woman named Alice Raikes boards a train to Scotland to visit her family. But when she arrives, she witnesses something so shocking that she insists on returning to London that very minute. Only a few hours later, Alice is lying in a coma after an accident that may or may not have been a suicide attempt.

    With Alice's life hanging in the balance, her family gathers at her bedside. As they wait, argue, and remember, long-buried tensions rise to the surface. The more they talk, the more, it seems, they conceal from each other. Alice, meanwhile, sliding between different levels of consciousness, recalls her past and a recent love affair. Skipping around in time, knitting together the different points of view with astonishing dexterity and beautiful prose, Maggie O'Farrell has created a story of love and family relationships that is reminiscent of the very best of Edna O'Brien and Mary Gordon. With one of the most heart-stopping openings in modern fiction, After You'd Gone is a work of extraordinary psychological depth and impressive maturity. [via]

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  • Stegner, Wallace: Angle of Repose
    Angle of Repose
    by Wallace Stegner
    ISBN 0606218971 (0-606-21897-1)
    Hardcover, Demco Media

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  • Anna Karenin
    by Leo Tolstoy
    ISBN 0582448352 (0-582-44835-2)
    Softcover, Longman Pub Group

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    Book summary:

    Anna Karenina tells of the doomed love affair between the sensuous and rebellious Anna and the dashing officer, Count Vronsky. Tragedy unfolds as Anna rejects her passionless marriage and must endure the hypocrisies of society. Set against a vast and richly textured canvas of nineteenth-century Russia, the novel's seven major characters create a dynamic imbalance, playing out the contrasts of city and country life and all the variations on love and family happiness. While previous versions have softened the robust, and sometimes shocking, quality of Tolstoy's writing, Pevear and Volokhonsky have produced a translation true to his powerful voice. This award-winning team's authoritative edition also includes an illuminating introduction and explanatory notes. Beautiful, vigorous, and eminently readable, this Anna Karenina will be the definitive text for generations to come. [via]

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  • Anne of Green Gables
    by Ian Montgomery
    ISBN 0582529824 (0-582-52982-4)
    Softcover, Prentice Hall

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    When Marilla Cuthbert's brother, Matthew, returns home to Green Gables with a chatty redheaded orphan girl, Marilla exclaims, "But we asked for a boy. We have no use for a girl." It's not long, though, before the Cuthberts can't imagine how they could ever do without young Anne of Green Gables--but not for the original reasons they sought an orphan. Somewhere between the time Anne "confesses" to losing Marilla's amethyst pin (which she never took) in hopes of being allowed to go to a picnic, and when Anne accidentally dyes her hated carrot-red hair green, Marilla says to Matthew, "One thing's for certain, no house that Anne's in will ever be dull." And no book that she's in will be, either. This adapted version of the classic, Anne of Green Gables, introduces younger readers to the irrepressible heroine of L.M. Montgomery's many stories. Adapter M.C. Helldorfer includes only a few of Anne's mirthful and poignant adventures, yet manages to capture the freshness of one of children's literature's spunkiest, most beloved characters. There's just enough to make beginning readers want more--luckily, there's a lot more in the originals! Illustrator Ellen Beier creates vibrant pictures to portray the beauty of the land around Green Gables and the spirited nature of Anne herself. (Ages 5 to 8) --Emilie Coulter [via]

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  • Montgomery, L.M.: Anne of the Island
    Anne of the Island
    by L.M. Montgomery
    ISBN 059046163X (0-590-46163-X)
    Softcover, Scholastic Paperbacks

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    THIS EDITION IS INTENDED FOR USE IN SCHOOLS AND LIBRARIES ONLY. [via]

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  • The Art of Seduction
    by Robert Greene
    ISBN 0670891924 (0-670-89192-4)
    Hardcover, Penguin Group USA

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    Book summary:

    The season's most talked-about all-purpose personal strategy guide and philosophical compendium," said Newsweek of Robert Greene's bold, elegant, and ingenious manual of modern manipulation, The 48 Laws of Power. Now Greene has once again mined history and literature to distill the essence of seduction, the most highly refined mode of influence, the ultimate power trip.

    The Art of Seduction is a masterful synthesis of the work of thinkers such as Freud, Ovid, Kierkegaard, and Einstein, as well as the achievements of the greatest seducers throughout history. From Cleopatra to John F. Kennedy, from Andy Warhol to Josephine Bonaparte, The Art of Seduction gets to the heart of the character of the seducer and his or her tactics, triumphs and failures. The seducer's many faces include: the Siren, the Rake, the Ideal Lover, the Dandy, the Natural, the Coquette, the Charmer, and the Charismatic. Twenty-four maneuvers will guide readers through the seduction process, providing cunning, amoral instructions for and analysis of this fascinating, all-pervasive form of power. Just as beautifully packaged and every bit as essential as The 48 Laws of Power, The Art of Seduction is an indispensable primer of persuasion and offers the best lessons on how to take what you want from whomever you want or how to prevent yourself from being taken. [via]

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  • Bel Canto
    by Ann Patchett
    ISBN 0606341722 (0-606-34172-2)
    Hardcover, Demco Media

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    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]

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  • Orbach, Susie: Between Women: Love, Envy and Competition in Women's Friendships
    Between Women: Love, Envy and Competition in Women's Friendships
    by Susie Orbach, Luise Eichenbaum
    ISBN 0670811416 (0-670-81141-6)
    Hardcover, Penguin USA

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  • Cold Mountain
    by Charles Frazier
    ISBN 0613075080 (0-613-07508-0)
    Hardcover, Bt Bound

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    The hero of Charles Frazier's beautifully written and deeply-imagined first novel is Inman, a disillusioned Confederate soldier who has failed to die as expected after being seriously wounded in battle during the last days of the Civil War. Rather than waiting to be redeployed to the front, the soul-sick Inman deserts, and embarks on a dangerous and lonely odyssey through the devastated South, heading home to North Carolina, and seeking only to be reunited with his beloved, Ada, who has herself been struggling to maintain the family farm she inherited. Cold Mountain is an unforgettable addition to the literature of one of the most important and transformational periods in American history. [via]

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  • Cold Mountain
    by Hal Leonard Corp
    ISBN 0634078593 (0-634-07859-3)
    Softcover, Hal Leonard Corp

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    This stunning, Oscar-winning epic features a T-Bone Burnett-produced soundtrack of Appalachian-flavored folk, moving originals by Elvis Costello and Sting, performances by Alison Krauss and the White Stripes' Jack White, and an orchestral score by Gabriel [via]

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  • A Common Life
    by Jan Karon
    ISBN 0670894370 (0-670-89437-0)
    Hardcover, Penguin Group USA

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    A Common Life is a trip back in time for fans of "the little town with the big heart." Somewhere between the second and third volumes of Jan Karon's Mitford Years series, dyed-in-the-wool bachelor Father Timothy Kavanagh and his next-door neighbor Cynthia Coppersmith tied the knot. The author left it to readers' imaginations to fill in the blanks. In this delightful story, Karon paints a complete picture of the events surrounding the wedding of Mitford's best-loved couple, and chronicles the poignant and often hilarious reactions to the nuptial news by the tightly knit North Carolina community.

    All the details cherished by those who are enchanted by weddings are offered here, from the color of the bridal outfit (aquamarine) to the choice of flowers (virgin's bower and hydrangeas). When the wedding bells finally ring, the pews are packed with the people who make Mitford special: ornery Uncle Billy, delightful Miss Sadie, indispensable Louella, and the cantankerous Emma Newland. And there's not a dry eye in the house when Father Tim's problematic foster child Dooley Barlowe sings for the two people who love him the most.

    A Common Life is not just a wedding story. It's also an intimate portrait of the unfolding love between Cynthia and the shy Father Tim, complete with fears and hesitations, professions of commitment, and Barnabas the dog delivering love letters. But there's nothing heavy-handed here. The tensions don't run any higher than wondering if Cynthia will make it to the wedding on time after getting locked inside her own bathroom, or guessing if Esther will make her famous three-layer orange marmalade cake for the reception. Told in the warm, down-home style that Karon has built her reputation on, A Common Life is sweet without being saccharine, charming without being cloying. It's an invitation to a literary reunion of the best kind, and like all weddings, it will probably coax a few tears and plenty of smiles. --Cindy Crosby [via]

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  • Crime and Punishment
    by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, David McDuff
    ISBN 0670836400 (0-670-83640-0)
    Hardcover, Penguin Group USA

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    The novel tells how Raskolnikov, a former student, murders an old woman moneylender and her unfortunate sister. The story is a detective novel, a religious epic and a study in criminal psychology as well as being an indictment of urban social conditions in 19th-century Russia. [via]

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  • Dairy Queen
    by Catherine Gilbert Murdock
    ISBN 0618683070 (0-618-68307-0)
    Hardcover, Houghton Mifflin

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    When you dont talk, theres a lot of stuff that ends up not getting said.

    Harsh words indeed, from Brian Nelson of all people. But, D. J. cant help admitting, maybe hes right.

    When you dont talk, theres a lot of stuff that ends up not getting said.

    Stuff like why her best friend, Amber, isnt so friendly anymore. Or why her little brother, Curtis, never opens his mouth. Why her mom has two jobs and a big secret. Why her college-football-star brothers wont even call home. Why her dad would go ballistic if she tried out for the high school football team herself. And why Brian is so, so out of her league.

    When you dont talk, theres a lot of stuff that ends up not getting said.

    Welcome to the summer that fifteen-year-old D. J. Schwenk of Red Bend, Wisconsin, learns to talk, and ends up having an awful lot of stuff to say.
    [via]

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  • Block, Francesca Lia: Dangerous Angels
    Dangerous Angels
    by Francesca Lia Block
    ISBN 0613114647 (0-613-11464-7)
    Hardcover, Bt Bound

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  • Block, Francesca Lia: Dangerous Angels the Weetzie Bat Books
    Dangerous Angels the Weetzie Bat Books
    by Francesca Lia Block
    ISBN 060616975X (0-606-16975-X)
    Hardcover, Demco Media

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  • Daughter of Fortune
    by Isabel Allende, Margaret Sayers Peden
    ISBN 0606205012 (0-606-20501-2)
    Hardcover, Demco Media

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    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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  • Barry, Dave: Dave Barry Is from Mars and Venus
    Dave Barry Is from Mars and Venus
    by Dave Barry
    ISBN 0609600664 (0-609-60066-4)
    Hardcover, Crown Publishing Group

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  • Mitchard, Jacquelyn: The Deep End of the Ocean
    The Deep End of the Ocean
    by Jacquelyn Mitchard
    ISBN 0613033191 (0-613-03319-1)
    Hardcover, Bt Bound

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    Oprah Book Club® Selection, September 1996: The horror of losing a child is somehow made worse when the case goes unsolved for nearly a decade, reports Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel columnist Jacquelyn Mitchard in this searing first novel. In it, 3-year-old Ben Cappadora is kidnapped from a hotel lobby where his mother is checking into her 15th high school reunion. His disappearance tears the family apart and invokes separate experiences of anguish, denial, and self-blame. Marital problems and delinquency in Ben's older brother (in charge of him the day of his kidnapping) ensue. Mitchard depicts the family's friction and torment--along with many gritty realities of family life--with the candor of a journalist and compassion of someone who has seemingly been there. International publishing and movie rights sold fast on this one: It's a blockbuster. [via]

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  • Broussard, Meredith: The Dictionary of Failed Relationships
    The Dictionary of Failed Relationships
    by Meredith Broussard
    ISBN 060981009X (0-609-81009-X)
    Softcover, Random House Inc

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  • Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
    by Robert Louis Stevenson
    ISBN 0582018188 (0-582-01818-8)
    Softcover, Addison-Wesley

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    Book summary:

    The young Robert Louis Stevenson suffered from repeated nightmares of living a double life, in which by day he worked as a respectable doctor and by night he roamed the back alleys of old-town Edinburgh. In three days of furious writing, he produced a story about his dream existence. His wife found it too gruesome, so he promptly burned the manuscript. In another three days, he wrote it again. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was published as a "shilling shocker" in 1886, and became an instant classic. In the first six months, 40,000 copies were sold. Queen Victoria read it. Sermons and editorials were written about it. When Stevenson and his family visited America a year later, they were mobbed by reporters at the dock in New York City. Compulsively readable from its opening pages, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is still one of the best tales ever written about the divided self.

    This University of Nebraska Press edition is a small, exquisitely produced paperback. The book design, based on the original first edition of 1886, includes wide margins, decorative capitals on the title page and first page of each chapter, and a clean, readable font that is 19th-century in style. Joyce Carol Oates contributes a foreword in which she calls Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde a "mythopoetic figure" like Frankenstein, Dracula, and Alice in Wonderland, and compares Stevenson's creation to doubled selves in the works of Plato, Poe, Wilde, and Dickens.

    This edition also features 12 full-page wood engravings by renowned illustrator Barry Moser. Moser is a skillful reader and interpreter as well as artist, and his afterword to the book, in which he explains the process by which he chose a self-portrait motif for the suite of engravings, is fascinating. For the image of Edward Hyde, he writes, "I went so far as to have my dentist fit me out with a carefully sculpted prosthetic of evil-looking teeth. But in the final moments I had to abandon the idea as being inappropriate. It was more important to stay in keeping with the text and, like Stevenson, not show Hyde's face." (Also recommended: the edition of Frankenstein illustrated by Barry Moser) --Fiona Webster [via]

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  • Dessen, Sarah: Dreamland
    Dreamland
    by Sarah Dessen
    ISBN 0670891223 (0-670-89122-3)
    Hardcover, Penguin USA

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    Strange, sleepy Rogerson, with his long brown dreads and brilliant green eyes, had seemed to Caitlin to be an open door. With him she could be anybody, not just the second-rate shadow of her older sister, Cass. But now she is drowning in the vacuum Cass left behind when she turned her back on her family's expectations by running off with a boyfriend. Caitlin wanders in a dream land of drugs and a nightmare of Rogerson's sudden fists, lost in her search for herself.

    Why do so many girls allow themselves to get into abusive relationships--and what keeps them there? In this riveting novel, Sarah Dessen searches for understanding and answers. Caught in a trap that is baited with love and need, Caitlin must frantically manage her every action to avoid being hit by the hands that once seemed so gentle. All around her are women who care--best friends, mother, sister, mentor--but shame keeps her from confiding in any of them, especially Cass, her brilliant older sister, whose own flight from home had seemed to point the way.

    Dessen has here created a subtle and compelling work of literature that goes far beyond the teen problem novel in a story rich with symbolism, dark scenes of paralyzing dread, quirky and memorable characters, and gleams of humor. With the consummate skill and psychological depth that brought her praise for Keeping the Moon, she explores the search for self-identity, the warmth of feminine friendships, and the destructive ways our society sets up young women for love gone wrong. (Ages 14 and older) --Patty Campbell [via]

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  • Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
    by Jonathan Safran Foer
    ISBN 0618329706 (0-618-32970-6)
    Hardcover, Houghton Mifflin

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    Book summary:

    Jonathan Safran Foer emerged as one of the most original writers of his generation with his best-selling debut novel, Everything Is Illuminated. Now, with humor, tenderness, and awe, he confronts the traumas of our recent history. What he discovers is solace in that most human quality, imagination.
    Meet Oskar Schell, an inventor, Francophile, tambourine player, Shakespearean actor, jeweler, pacifist, correspondent with Stephen Hawking and Ringo Starr. He is nine years old. And he is on an urgent, secret search through the five boroughs of New York. His mission is to find the lock that fits a mysterious key belonging to his father, who died in the World Trade Center on 9/11.
    An inspired innocent, Oskar is alternately endearing, exasperating, and hilarious as he careens from Central Park to Coney Island to Harlem on his search. Along the way he is always dreaming up inventions to keep those he loves safe from harm. What about a birdseed shirt to let you fly away? What if you could actually hear everyone's heartbeat? His goal is hopeful, but the past speaks a loud warning in stories of those who've lost loved ones before. As Oskar roams New York, he encounters a motley assortment of humanity who are all survivors in their own way. He befriends a 103-year-old war reporter, a tour guide who never leaves the Empire State Building, and lovers enraptured or scorned. Ultimately, Oskar ends his journey where it began, at his father's grave. But now he is accompanied by the silent stranger who has been renting the spare room of his grandmother's apartment. They are there to dig up his father's empty coffin.
    [via]

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  • Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
    by Jonathan Safran Foer
    ISBN 0618711651 (0-618-71165-1)
    Softcover, Houghton Mifflin

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    Jonathan safran foer emerged as one of the most original writers of his generation with his best-selling debut novel, everything is illuminated. Now, with humor, tenderness, and awe, he confronts the traumas of our recent history.nine-year-old oskar schell has embarked on an urgent, secret mission that will take him through the five boroughs of new york. His goal is to find the lock that matches a mysterious key that belonged to his father, who died in the world trade center on the morning of september 11. This seemingly impossible task will bring oskar into contact with survivors of all sorts on an exhilarating, affecting, often hilarious, and ultimately healing journey [via]

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  • Fine Balance
    by Rohinton Mistry
    ISBN 0571203620 (0-571-20362-0)
    Softcover, Faber & Faber Ltd

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  • Full Cupboard of Life
    by Alexander McCall Smith
    ISBN 0606335463 (0-606-33546-3)
    Hardcover, Demco Media

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    Here is the fifth novel in the internationally bestselling No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency hit series. Once again we are transported to Gaborone, capital city of Botswana, and into the world of Mma Ramotswe and her friends.

    THE NO. 1 LADIES DETECTIVE AGENCY.
    FOR ALL CONFIDENTIAL MATTERS AND ENQUIRIES. SATISFACTION GUARANTEED FOR ALL PARTIES.
    UNDER PERSONAL MANAGEMENT.

    Mma Ramotswe and Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni are still engaged, but with no immediate plans to get married. Mma Ramotswe wonders when a wedding date will be named, but she is anxious to avoid putting pressure on her fiancé. For indeed he has other things on his mind -- particularly a frightening request (involving a parachute jump) made by Mma Potokwani, the persuasive matron of the orphan farm.

    Mma Ramotswe herself has weighty matters on her mind. She has been approached by a wealthy lady to check up on several suitors. Are these men interested in her or just her money? This may be difficult to find out, but its just the kind of case Mma Ramotswe likes and she is, as we know, a very intuitive lady.

    Meanwhile, Mma Makutsi -- plucky assistant detective and deputy manager of the Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors garage -- is moving. Her entrepreneurial venture, the Kalahari Typing School for Men, is thriving and with this new income she has rented two rooms in a house. Her spare time is occupied with planning the move, the décor and her new life in a house with running water all to herself.

    In the background of all this is Botswana, a country of empty spaces and echoing skies, a country so beautiful and entrancing that it breaks your heart. Mma Ramotswe has prepared the bush tea and is waiting for us to join her. [via]

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  • Clowes, Daniel: Ghost World/ Mundo fantasmal
    Ghost World/ Mundo fantasmal
    by Daniel Clowes
    ISBN 0613509188 (0-613-50918-8)
    Hardcover, Bt Bound

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  • Chevalier, Tracy: Girl With a Pearl Earring
    Girl With a Pearl Earring
    by Tracy Chevalier
    ISBN 0606206736 (0-606-20673-6)
    Hardcover, Demco Media

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  • Girl, Interrupted
    by Susanna Kaysen
    ISBN 0613377176 (0-613-37717-6)
    Hardcover, Bt Bound

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    Book summary:

    When reality got "too dense" for 18-year-old Susanna Kaysen, she was hospitalized. It was 1967, and reality was too dense for many people. But few who are labeled mad and locked up for refusing to stick to an agreed-upon reality possess Kaysen's lucidity in sorting out a maelstrom of contrary perceptions. Her observations about hospital life are deftly rendered; often darkly funny. Her clarity about the complex province of brain and mind, of neuro-chemical activity and something more, make this book of brief essays an exquisite challenge to conventional thinking about what is normal and what is deviant. [via]

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  • The Giver
    by Lois Lowry
    ISBN 0606069909 (0-606-06990-9)
    Hardcover, Demco Media

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  • The Grapes of Wrath
    by John Steinbeck
    ISBN 0670347914 (0-670-34791-4)
    Hardcover, Penguin USA

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    Book summary:

    When The Grapes of Wrath was published in 1939, America, still recovering from the Great Depression, came face to face with itself in a startling, lyrical way. John Steinbeck gathered the country's recent shames and devastations--the Hoovervilles, the desperate, dirty children, the dissolution of kin, the oppressive labor conditions--in the Joad family. Then he set them down on a westward-running road, local dialect and all, for the world to acknowledge. For this marvel of observation and perception, he won the Pulitzer in 1940.

    The prize must have come, at least in part, because alongside the poverty and dispossession, Steinbeck chronicled the Joads' refusal, even inability, to let go of their faltering but unmistakable hold on human dignity. Witnessing their degeneration from Oklahoma farmers to a diminished band of migrant workers is nothing short of crushing. The Joads lose family members to death and cowardice as they go, and are challenged by everything from weather to the authorities to the California locals themselves. As Tom Joad puts it: "They're a-workin' away at our spirits. They're a tryin' to make us cringe an' crawl like a whipped bitch. They tryin' to break us. Why, Jesus Christ, Ma, they comes a time when the on'y way a fella can keep his decency is by takin' a sock at a cop. They're workin' on our decency."

    The point, though, is that decency remains intact, if somewhat battle-scarred, and this, as much as the depression and the plight of the "Okies," is a part of American history. When the California of their dreams proves to be less than edenic, Ma tells Tom: "You got to have patience. Why, Tom--us people will go on livin' when all them people is gone. Why, Tom, we're the people that live. They ain't gonna wipe us out. Why, we're the people--we go on." It's almost as if she's talking about the very novel she inhabits, for Steinbeck's characters, more than most literary creations, do go on. They continue, now as much as ever, to illuminate and humanize an era for generations of readers who, thankfully, have no experiential point of reference for understanding the depression. The book's final, haunting image of Rose of Sharon--Rosasharn, as they call her--the eldest Joad daughter, forcing the milk intended for her stillborn baby onto a starving stranger, is a lesson on the grandest scale. "'You got to,'" she says, simply. And so do we all. --Melanie Rehak [via]

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  • The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
    by Carson McCullers
    ISBN 0618526412 (0-618-52641-2)
    Softcover, Mariner Books

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    Book summary:

    With the publication of her first novel, THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER, Carson McCullers, all of twenty-three, became a literary sensation. With its profound sense of moral isolation and its compassionate glimpses into its characters' inner lives, the novel is considered McCullers' finest work, an enduring masterpiece first published by Houghton Mifflin in 1940. At its center is the deaf-mute John Singer, who becomes the confidant for various types of misfits in a Georgia mill town during the 1930s. Each one yearns for escape from small town life. When Singer's mute companion goes insane, Singer moves into the Kelly house, where Mick Kelly, the book's heroine (and loosely based on McCullers), finds solace in her music. Wonderfully attuned to the spiritual isolation that underlies the human condition, and with a deft sense for racial tensions in the South, McCullers spins a haunting, unforgettable story that gives voice to the rejected, the forgotten, and the mistreated -- and, through Mick Kelly, gives voice to the quiet, intensely personal search for beauty.
    Richard Wright praised Carson McCullers for her ability "to rise above the pressures of her environment and embrace white and black humanity in one sweep of apprehension and tenderness." She writes "with a sweep and certainty that are overwhelming," said the NEW YORK TIMES. McCullers became an overnight literary sensation, but her novel has endured, just as timely and powerful today as when it was first published. THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER is Carson McCullers at her most compassionate, endearing best.
    [via]

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  • House of the Spirits
    by Isabel Allende, Magda Bogin
    ISBN 0613027655 (0-613-02765-5)
    Hardcover, Bt Bound

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    Book summary:

    We begin - at the turn of the century, in an unnamed South American country - in the childhood home of the woman who will be the mother and grandmother of the clan, Clara del Valle. A warm-hearted, hypersensitive girl, Clara has distinguished herself from an early age with her telepathic abilities - she can read fortunes, make objects move as if they had lives of their own, and predict the future. Following the mysterious death of her sister, the fabled Rosa the Beautiful, Clara has been mute for nine years, resisting all attempts to make her speak. When she breaks her silence, it is to announce that she will be married soon. Her husband-to-be is Esteban Trueba, a stern, willful man, given to fits of rage and haunted by a profound loneliness. At the age of thirty-five, he has returned to the capital from his country estate to visit his dying mother and to find a wife. (He was Rosa's fiance, and her death has marked him as deeply as it has Clara.) This is the man Clara has foreseen - has summoned - to be her husband; Esteban, in turn, will conceive a passion for Clara that will last the rest of his long and rancorous life. We go with this couple as they move into the extravagant house he builds for her, a structure that everyone calls "the big house on the corner," which is soon populated with Clara's spiritualist friends, the artists she sponsors, the charity cases she takes an interest in, with Esteban's political cronies, and, above all, with the Trueba children: Blanca, a practical, self-effacing girl who will, to the fury of her father, form a lifelong liaison with the son of his foreman, and the twins, Jaime and Nicolas, the former a solitary, taciturn boy who becomes a doctor to the poor and unfortunate; the latter a playboy, a dabbler in Eastern religions and mystical disciplines and, in the third generation, the child Alba, Blanca's daughter (the family does not recognize the real father for years, so great is Esteban's anger), a child who is fondled and indulged and instructed by them all. For all their good fortune, their natural (and supernatural) talents, and their powerful attachments to one another, the inhabitants of "the big house on the corner" are not immune to the larger forces of the world. And, as the twentieth century beats on, as Esteban becomes more strident in his opposition to Communism, as Jaime becomes the friend and confidant of the Socialist leader known as the Candidate, as Alba falls in love with a student radical, the Truebas become actors - and victims - in a tragic series of events that gives The House of the Spirits a deeper resonance and meaning. [via]

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  • Weldon, Fay: Life Force
    Life Force
    by Fay Weldon
    ISBN 0670841463 (0-670-84146-3)
    Hardcover, Penguin Group USA

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  • Karon, Jan: Light from Heaven
    Light from Heaven
    by Jan Karon
    ISBN 0670034533 (0-670-03453-3)
    Hardcover, Penguin Group (Canada)

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  • Karon, Jan: A Light in the Window
    A Light in the Window
    by Jan Karon
    ISBN 0670882267 (0-670-88226-7)
    Hardcover, Viking Pr

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  • Martin, Ann M.: Maggie
    Maggie
    by Ann M. Martin
    ISBN 0590298372 (0-590-29837-2)
    Softcover, Scholastic Paperbacks

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  • Marriage, A History: From Obedience To Intimacy Or How Love Conquered Marriage
    by Stephanie Coontz
    ISBN 067003407X (0-670-03407-X)
    Hardcover, Viking Pr

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    Book summary:

    Marriage today is held up as a blissful haven of love and friendship, sex and stability. We long for the gold standard, the traditional marriage but marriage turns out to have a checkered past-the "traditional marriage" was evanescent. This real look at what people think of as "traditional" finally explains why so many married people are so unsatisfied.

    In this groundbreaking book, award-winning historian Stephanie Coontz takes us on an eye- opening journey from the marital intrigues of ancient Babylon to the sexual torments of Victorian lovers to the current debates over the meaning and future of marriage. She provides the definitive story of marriages evolution from the arranged unions common since the dawn of civilization into the intimate, sexually fulfilling but volatile relationships of today.

    For most of our history, marriage was not a relationship based on mutual love between a breadwinning husband and an at-home wife, but an institution devoted to acquiring wealth, power, and property. Picking a mate on the basis of something as irrational as love would have been considered absurd. Only in the nineteenth century did marriage move to the center of peoples emotional lives, when the wife became the "angel of the home" and the husband the "provider." Yet these Victorian ideals contain the seeds of todays marriage crisis. As people began to expect romance and intimacy in their marriages, their unions became more fragile. The postwar era of the 1950s ushered in a brief "Golden Age" of marriage-the Ozzie and Harriet years-but the same advances in birth control, increased individual autonomy, and womens equality that made marriage more satisfying than it had been in the past also undermined its stability.

    Marriage has changed more in the last thirty years than in the previous five thousand, and few of the old "rules" for marriage still apply. In the courts, the op-ed pieces, and at the dinner table, battles rage over what marriage means, why people do it, and who can do it. Marriage, a History is the one book you need to understand not only the vicissitudes of modern marriage but also gay marriage, "living together" and divorce. Stephanie Coontz shatters dozens of myths about the past and future of married life and shows us why marriage, though more fragile today, can be more rewarding than ever before. [via]

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  • My Heartbeat
    by Garret Freymann-Weyr, Garret Weyr
    ISBN 0618141812 (0-618-14181-2)
    Hardcover, Houghton Mifflin

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    Book summary:

    Ellen loves Link and James. Her older brother and his best friend are the only company she ever wants. She knows they fight, but she makes it a policy never to take sides. She loves her brother, the math genius and track star. She is totally, madly in love with James, his face full of long eyelashes and hidden smiles. When you grow out of it, James teases her, you will break my heart.

    Ellen knows shell never outgrow it. Shell always love James just the way shell always love Link. Then someone at school asks if Link and James might be in love with each other. A simple question.

    Link refuses to discuss it. James refuses to stay friends with a boy so full of secrets. Ellens parents want Link to keep his secrets to himself, but Ellen wants to know who her brother really is. When is curiosity a betrayal? And if James says he loves her, isnt that just another way of saying he still loves Link?

    My Heartbeat is a fast, furious story in which a quirky triangle learns to change its shape and Ellen, at least, learns the limits of what you can ever know about whom you love.
    [via]

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  • Mazur, Ronald: The New Intimacy: Open-Ended Marriage and Alternative Lifestyles
    The New Intimacy: Open-Ended Marriage and Alternative Lifestyles
    by Ronald Mazur
    ISBN 0595001025 (0-595-00102-5)
    Softcover, Iuniverse Inc

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  • A New Song
    by Jan Karon
    ISBN 0670878103 (0-670-87810-3)
    Hardcover, Penguin Group USA

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    As if being a priest in this day and age isn't difficult enough, try shepherding two parishes, located hundreds of miles apart, at the same time. A predicament of biblical proportions indeed, but one the indomitable Father Tim Kavanaugh and his cheerful wife, Cynthia, can handle, with a little help from the Lord--not to mention their friends--in Jan Karon's A New Song, the fifth installment in her much-loved Mitford series. When asked to act as interim minister for a tiny island parish in North Carolina's Outer Banks, the recently retired Father heeds the call, all the while trusting in a divine master plan: "He had prayed that God would send him wherever He pleased, and when his bishop presented the idea of Whitecap, he knew it wasn't his bishop's bright idea at all, but God's."

    From the more routine duties of settling into a new church to dealing with a number of deeper domestic issues--including a single mother's spiral into depression and a reclusive next door neighbor in need of kindness--Father Tim's new parish presents a welcome challenge. All the while, of course, the folks back home keep him informed of goings-on in Mitford--the biggest being the recent arrest of Dooley Barlowe, a mountain boy whom Father Tim had taken into his home and heart five years earlier. As in past Mitford episodes, things have a way of working themselves out, but not before Father Tim and his accompanying cast learn a few more valuable lessons about life. Full of the homey atmosphere and heartwarming truths--not to mention the endearingly quirky characters--that are Karon's trademark, A New Song is a delightful celebration of the communal ties that bind. --Stefanie Hargreaves [via]

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  • Of Mice and Men
    by John Steinbeck
    ISBN 0670520713 (0-670-52071-3)
    Hardcover, Penguin USA

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    Nobel Prize winning author John Steinbeck, one of the greatest American writers of the twentieth century, offers a powerful but tragic tale in "Of Mice and Men". 'Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world. They got no family. They don't belong no place'. George and his large, simple-minded friend Lennie are drifters, following wherever work leads them. Arriving in California's Salinas Valley, they get work on a ranch. If they can just stay out of trouble, George promises Lennie, then one day they might be able to get some land of their own and settle down some place. But kind-hearted, childlike Lennie is a victim of his own strength. Seen by others as a threat, he finds it impossible to control his emotions. And one day not even George will be able to save him from trouble. "Of Mice and Men" is a tragic and moving story of friendship, loneliness and the dispossessed. "A thriller, a gripping tale that you will not set down until it is finished. Steinbeck has touched the quick". ("New York Times"). Nobel Prize-winning author John Steinbeck is remembered as one of the greatest and best-loved American writers of the twentieth century. His complete works are published by Penguin and include "Cannery Row", "The Pearl", "The Winter of Our Discontent" and "The Grapes of Wrath". [via]

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  • On the Road
    by Jack Kerouac
    ISBN 0670874787 (0-670-87478-7)
    Hardcover, Penguin Group USA

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    On The Road, the most famous of Jack Kerouac's works, is not only the soul of the Beat movement and literature, but one of the most important novels of the century. Like nearly all of Kerouac's writing, On The Road is thinly fictionalized autobiography, filled with a cast made of Kerouac's real life friends, lovers, and fellow travelers. Narrated by Sal Paradise, one of Kerouac's alter-egos, On the Road is a cross-country bohemian odyssey that not only influenced writing in the years since its 1957 publication but penetrated into the deepest levels of American thought and culture. [via]

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  • Karon, Jan: Out To Canaan
    Out To Canaan
    by Jan Karon
    ISBN 067087485X (0-670-87485-X)
    Hardcover, Penguin Group USA

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  • Outlander
    by Diana Gabaldon
    ISBN 0613237501 (0-613-23750-1)
    Hardcover, Bt Bound

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    In Outlander, a 600-page time-travel romance, strong-willed and sensual Claire Randall leads a double life with a husband in one century, and a lover in another. Torn between fidelity and desire, she struggles to understand the pure intent of her heart. But don't let the number of pages and the Scottish dialect scare you. It's one of the fastest reads you'll have in your library.

    While on her second honeymoon in the British Isles, Claire touches a boulder that hurls her back in time to the forbidden Castle Leoch with the MacKenzie clan. Not understanding the forces that brought her there, she becomes ensnared in life-threatening situations with a Scots warrior named James Fraser. But it isn't all spies and drudgery that she must endure. For amid her new surroundings and the terrors she faces, she is lured into love and passion like she's never known before.

    I was lame and sore in every muscle when I woke next morning. I shuffled to the privy closet, then to the wash basin. My innards felt like churned butter. It felt as though I had been beaten with a blunt object, I reflected, then thought that that was very near the truth. The blunt object in question was visible as I came back to bed, looking now relatively harmless. Its possessor [Jamie] woke as I sat next to him, and examined me with something that looked very much like male smugness."
    Gabaldon creates characters that you'll remember, laugh with, cry with, and cheer for long after you've finished the book. --Candy Paape [via]

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  • The Outsiders
    by S. E. Hinton
    ISBN 0670532576 (0-670-53257-6)
    Hardcover, Penguin Group USA

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    According to Ponyboy, there are two kinds of people in the world: greasers and socs. A soc (short for "social") has money, can get away with just about anything, and has an attitude longer than a limousine. A greaser, on the other hand, always lives on the outside and needs to watch his back. Ponyboy is a greaser, and he's always been proud of it, even willing to rumble against a gang of socs for the sake of his fellow greasers--until one terrible night when his friend Johnny kills a soc. The murder gets under Ponyboy's skin, causing his bifurcated world to crumble and teaching him that pain feels the same whether a soc or a greaser. This classic, written by S. E. Hinton when she was 16 years old, is as profound today as it was when it was first published in 1967. [via]

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  • Pigs in Heaven
    by Barbara Kingsolver
    ISBN 0613194209 (0-613-19420-9)
    Hardcover, Bt Bound

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    Six-year-old Turtle Greer witnesses a freak accident at the Hoover Dam, leading to a man's dramatic rescue. But Turtle's moment of celebrity draws her into a crisis of historical proportions that will envelop not only her and her mother, Taylor, but everyone else who touched their lives in a complex web connecting their future with their past. With this wise, compelling novel, the acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of The Poisonwood Bible, The Bean Trees, and Animal Dreams vividly renders a world of heartbreak and redeeming love as she defines and defies the boundaries of family, and illuminates the many separate truths aboutthe ties that bind us and tear us apart.

    [via]

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  • Picoult, Jodi: Plain Truth
    Plain Truth
    by Jodi Picoult
    ISBN 0606217967 (0-606-21796-7)
    Hardcover, Demco Media

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    The discovery of a dead infant in an Amish barn shakes Lancaster County to its core. But the police investigation leads to a more shocking disclosure: circumstantial evidence suggests that that eighteen-year-old Katie Fisher, an unmarried Amish woman believed to be the newborn's mother, took the child's life. When Ellie Hathaway, a disillusioned big city attorney, comes to Paradise, Pennsylvania, to defend Katie, two cultures collide - and, for the first time in her high profile career, Ellie faces a system of justice very different from her own. Delving deep into the world of those who live 'plain', Ellie must find a way to reach Katie on her terms. As she unravels a tangled murder case, Ellie also looks deep within - to confront her own fears and desires when a man from her past comes back into her life. [via]

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  • A Prayer for Owen Meany
    by John Irving
    ISBN 061303421X (0-613-03421-X)
    Hardcover, Bt Bound

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    Book summary:

    Owen Meany is a dwarfish boy with a strange voice who accidentally kills his best friend's mom with a baseball and believes--accurately--that he is an instrument of God, to be redeemed by martyrdom. John Irving's novel, which inspired the 1998 Jim Carrey movie Simon Birch, is his most popular book in Britain, and perhaps the oddest Christian mystic novel since Flannery O'Connor's work. Irving fans will find much that is familiar: the New England prep-school-town setting, symbolic amputations of man and beast, the Garp-like unknown father of the narrator (Owen's orphaned best friend), the rough comedy. The scene of doltish the doltish headmaster driving a trashed VW down the school's marble staircase is a marvelous set piece. So are the Christmas pageants Owen stars in. But it's all, as Highlights magazine used to put it, "fun with a purpose." When Owen plays baby Jesus in the pageants, and glimpses a tombstone with his death date while enacting A Christmas Carol, the slapstick doesn't cancel the fact that he was born to be martyred. The book's countless subplots add up to a moral argument, specifically an indictment of American foreign policy--from Vietnam to the Contras.

    The book's mystic religiosity is steeped in Robertson Davies's Deptford trilogy, and the fatal baseball relates to the fatefully misdirected snowball in the first Deptford novel, Fifth Business. Tiny, symbolic Owen echoes the hero of Irving's teacher Günter Grass's The Tin Drum--the two characters share the same initials. A rollicking entertainment, Owen Meany is also a meditation on literature, history, and God. --Tim Appelo [via]

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  • The Rainbow
    by D. H. Lawrence
    ISBN 0670000779 (0-670-00077-9)
    Softcover, Penguin Group USA

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    Book summary:

    ReadHowYouWant publishes a wide variety of best selling books in Large and Super Large fonts in partnership with leading publishers. EasyRead books are available in 11pt and 13pt. type. EasyRead Large books are available in 16pt, 16pt Bold, and 18pt Bold type. EasyRead Super Large books are available in 20pt. Bold and 24pt. Bold Type. You choose the format that is right for you.

    This is Volume Volume 3 of 3-Volume Set. To purchase the complete set, you will need to order the other volumes separately: to find them, search for the following ISBNs: 9781427048561, 9781427048776

    The novel covers the life-span of three generations. Lawrence delves deep into the psychology of his characters and comments on the qualities and their descent through generations. He discusses sexual dynamics and relations between characters of different generations. The book created ripples due to its bold topic when it was published, and is still widely-read.

    To find more titles in your format, Search in Books using EasyRead and the size of the font that makes reading easier and more enjoyable for you.

    [via]

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  • Du Maurier, Daphne: Rebecca
    Rebecca
    by Daphne Du Maurier
    ISBN 0582084865 (0-582-08486-5)
    Softcover, Addison-Wesley

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  • A Room With a View
    by E. M. Forster
    ISBN 0582512646 (0-582-51264-6)
    Softcover, Longman Pub Group

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    Book summary:

    The graded readers in this series aim to provide learners of English with a pleasurable reading experience. The series, which should appeal to a wide age range, exposes students to a variety of styles and kinds of English and the books contain puzzles and exercises based on the text. The grading system is based on lexical controls, structural controls and guidelines on sentence length and complexity. Books in Level 3 have a vocabulary of 1000 words. [via]

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  • Second Shift: Working Parents and the Revolution at Home
    by Arlie Hochschild
    ISBN 0670824631 (0-670-82463-1)
    Hardcover, Penguin Group USA

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    Book summary:

    Smashing insights on the sharing of howsework and childcare today. This is a must for anyone who would understand the backdrop to comtemprary marriage, childrearing-and divorce. [via]

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  • Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens: The Ultimate Teenage Success Guide
    by Sean Covey
    ISBN 0613237641 (0-613-23764-1)
    Hardcover, Bt Bound

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    Book summary:

    Based on his father's bestselling The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Sean Covey applies the same principles to teens, using a vivacious, entertaining style. To keep it fun, Covey writes, he "stuffed it full of cartoons, clever ideas, great quotes, and incredible stories about real teens from all over the world... along with a few other surprises." Did he ever! Flip open to any page and become instantly absorbed in real-life stories of teens who have overcome obstacles to succeed, and step-by-step guides to shifting paradigms, building equity in "relationship bank accounts," creating action plans, and much more.

    As a self-acknowledged guinea pig for many of his dad's theories, Sean Covey is a living example of someone who has taken each of the seven habits to heart: be proactive; begin with the end in mind; put first things first; think win-win; seek first to understand, then to be understood; synergize; and sharpen the saw. He includes a comical section titled "The 7 Habits of Highly Defective Teens," which includes some, shall we say, counterproductive practices: put first things last; don't cooperate; seek first to talk, then pretend to listen; wear yourself out... Covey's humorous and up-front style is just light enough to be acceptable to wary teenagers, and down-and-dirty enough to really make a difference. (Ages 13 and older) --Emilie Coulter [via]

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  • Karon, Jan: Shepherds Abiding: A Mitford Christmas Story
    Shepherds Abiding: A Mitford Christmas Story
    by Jan Karon
    ISBN 0670031208 (0-670-03120-8)
    Hardcover, Viking Pr

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  • Sloppy Firsts
    by Megan McCafferty
    ISBN 0609807900 (0-609-80790-0)
    Softcover, Random House Inc

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    Book summary:

    My parents suck ass. Banning me from the phone and restricting my computer privileges are the most tyrannical parental gestures I can think of. Dont they realize that Hopes the only one who keeps me sane? . . . I dont see how things could get any worse.

    When her best friend, Hope Weaver, moves away from Pineville, New Jersey, hyperobservant sixteen-year-old Jessica Darling is devastated. A fish out of water at school and a stranger at home, Jessica feels more lost than ever now that the only person with whom she could really communicate has gone. How is she supposed to deal with the boy- and shopping-crazy girls at school, her dads obsession with her track meets, her mother salivating over big sister Bethanys lavish wedding, and her nonexistent love life?

    A fresh, funny, utterly compelling fiction debut by first-time novelist Megan McCafferty, Sloppy Firsts is an insightful, true-to-life look at Jessicas predicament as she embarks on another year of teenage torment--from the dark days of Hopes departure through her months as a type-A personality turned insomniac to her completely mixed-up feelings about Marcus Flutie, the intelligent and mysterious Dreg who works his way into her heart. Like a John Hughes for the twenty-first century, Megan McCafferty taps into the inherent humor and drama of the teen experience. This poignant, hilarious novel is sure to appeal to readers who are still going through it, as well as those who are grateful that they dont have to go back and grow up all over again. [via]

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  • Snow Falling on Cedars
    by David Guterson
    ISBN 0613014367 (0-613-01436-7)
    Hardcover, Bt Bound

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    Book summary:

    Fighting the distrust and prejudice of his neighbors on a remote island in Puget Sound, a Japanese-American man who spent time in an internment camp during World War II, finds himself on trial for murder. The histories of the accused and the victim, both fishermen and residents of the small town of San Piedro, unfold as newspaperman Ishmael Chambers embarks on a quest for the truth. Lonely and war-scarred, Chambers strives for justice and inner strength, while coming to terms with his ill-fated love for Hatsue Miyamoto, the wife of the accused. Evocative and beautifully written, Snow Falling on Cedars won the 1995 PEN/Faulkner Award. [via]

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  • Snow Falling on Cedars
    by Penguin
    ISBN 058241928X (0-582-41928-X)
    Softcover, Prentice Hall

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    Book summary:

    Fighting the distrust and prejudice of his neighbors on a remote island in Puget Sound, a Japanese-American man who spent time in an internment camp during World War II, finds himself on trial for murder. The histories of the accused and the victim, both fishermen and residents of the small town of San Piedro, unfold as newspaperman Ishmael Chambers embarks on a quest for the truth. Lonely and war-scarred, Chambers strives for justice and inner strength, while coming to terms with his ill-fated love for Hatsue Miyamoto, the wife of the accused. Evocative and beautifully written, Snow Falling on Cedars won the 1995 PEN/Faulkner Award. [via]

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  • Freymann-Weyr, Garret: Stay With Me
    Stay With Me
    by Garret Freymann-Weyr
    ISBN 0618605711 (0-618-60571-1)
    Hardcover, Houghton Mifflin

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  • [???]: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde
    The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde
    ISBN 0582084849 (0-582-08484-9)
    Softcover, Addison-Wesley Longman Ltd

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  • The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
    by Robert Louis Stevenson, Francois Place
    ISBN 0670888710 (0-670-88871-0)
    Softcover, Penguin Group USA

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    Book summary:

    The young Robert Louis Stevenson suffered from repeated nightmares of living a double life, in which by day he worked as a respectable doctor and by night he roamed the back alleys of old-town Edinburgh. In three days of furious writing, he produced a story about his dream existence. His wife found it too gruesome, so he promptly burned the manuscript. In another three days, he wrote it again. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was published as a "shilling shocker" in 1886, and became an instant classic. In the first six months, 40,000 copies were sold. Queen Victoria read it. Sermons and editorials were written about it. When Stevenson and his family visited America a year later, they were mobbed by reporters at the dock in New York City. Compulsively readable from its opening pages, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is still one of the best tales ever written about the divided self.

    This University of Nebraska Press edition is a small, exquisitely produced paperback. The book design, based on the original first edition of 1886, includes wide margins, decorative capitals on the title page and first page of each chapter, and a clean, readable font that is 19th-century in style. Joyce Carol Oates contributes a foreword in which she calls Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde a "mythopoetic figure" like Frankenstein, Dracula, and Alice in Wonderland, and compares Stevenson's creation to doubled selves in the works of Plato, Poe, Wilde, and Dickens.

    This edition also features 12 full-page wood engravings by renowned illustrator Barry Moser. Moser is a skillful reader and interpreter as well as artist, and his afterword to the book, in which he explains the process by which he chose a self-portrait motif for the suite of engravings, is fascinating. For the image of Edward Hyde, he writes, "I went so far as to have my dentist fit me out with a carefully sculpted prosthetic of evil-looking teeth. But in the final moments I had to abandon the idea as being inappropriate. It was more important to stay in keeping with the text and, like Stevenson, not show Hyde's face." (Also recommended: the edition of Frankenstein illustrated by Barry Moser) --Fiona Webster [via]

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  • Green, Jane: Swapping Lives
    Swapping Lives
    by Jane Green
    ISBN 0670034800 (0-670-03480-0)
    Hardcover, Viking Pr

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  • The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
    by Anne Bronte
    ISBN 0586026576 (0-586-02657-6)
    Softcover, Academy Chicago Pub

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    Book summary:

    First published in 1848, a novel in which a woman flees from a disastrous marriage with her child to a desolate moorland mansion. It portrays one woman's struggle for independence at a time when law and society defined a married woman as her husband's property. [via]

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  • Hardy, Thomas: Tess of the D'Urbervilles
    Tess of the D'urbervilles
    by Thomas Hardy
    ISBN 0582019788 (0-582-01978-8)
    Softcover, Addison-Wesley Longman Ltd

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    Book summary:

    In addition to presenting the complete text of Hardy's famous novel, this volume provides students with contextualizing historical essays by John Ruskin, Charles Darwin, and Mona Caird and a selection of modern critical essays. Additional works by Hardy include "On the Western Circuit" and the poem "Tess' Lament." [via]

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  • McGahern, John: That They May Face the Rising Sun
    That They May Face the Rising Sun
    by John McGahern
    ISBN 0571212166 (0-571-21216-6)
    Hardcover, Faber and Faber

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  • That Was Then, This Is Now
    by S. E. Hinton
    ISBN 0670697982 (0-670-69798-2)
    Hardcover, Penguin Group USA

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    Book summary:

    Ever since Mark's parents died, he has been living with Bryon. The boys are more like brothers than mere friends. They've been inseparable--until recently. Something seems to be changing between them, and Bryon can't figure it out. Is it Cathy, Bryon's new girlfriend? Is Mark jealous? Bryon is also tired of the street fighting, but Mark seems unable to quit. And where is Mark getting all of that money? In That Was Then, This Is Now, one of her most admired novels, S. E. Hinton paints a richly textured portrait of two boys at a crossroads in their friendship. With careful, intimate strokes, Hinton reveals a boy struggling over whether to protect his best friend or whether to follow his own beliefs about right and wrong. The ending will surprise readers, challenging them to puzzle over Bryon's dilemma in their own hearts. [via]

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  • These High, Green Hills
    by Jan Karon
    ISBN 0670869341 (0-670-86934-1)
    Hardcover, Penguin Group USA

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    Book summary:

    The village of Mitford is soothing tonic for a readership that feels starved for community and yearns for clear morals. The recently married Father Tim and his plain-folk neighbors live the best of Christianity in everyday life. Even the rampant gossip in Mitford is the good kind: folks worrying about other folks and everyone minding one another's business out of concern rather than malice. As a result, no one faces a crisis alone. Often the crises are cause for a belly laugh, such as the rectory's new computer system that seems programmed to torment. But just as often the crises have the bite of real-life problems, such as the bloody young girl in shredded clothes, whom Father Tim finds after she was beaten by her drunken father, and the soul-wrenching despair Father Tim feels when he loses a surrogate mother. The heavily quoted scripture gives a day-to-day context for biblical teachings as well as spiritual solace during the sadder days at Mitford. --Gail Hudson [via]

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  • Southgate, Martha: Third Girl from the Left
    Third Girl from the Left
    by Martha Southgate
    ISBN 061877338X (0-618-77338-X)
    Softcover, Mariner Books

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  • Woolf, Virginia: To the Lighthouse
    To the Lighthouse
    by Virginia Woolf
    ISBN 0582097142 (0-582-09714-2)
    Softcover, Addison-Wesley

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  • Bohjalian, Chris: Trans-Sister Radio
    Trans-Sister Radio
    by Chris Bohjalian
    ISBN 0609604074 (0-609-60407-4)
    Hardcover, Crown Publishing Group

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  • Truth And Consequences
    by Alison Lurie
    ISBN 0670034398 (0-670-03439-8)
    Hardcover, Viking Pr

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    Book summary:

    "One can read Lurie as one might read Jane Austen, with continual delight," Joyce Carol Oates has said about novelist Alison Lurie. And author John Fowles has remarked, "There is no American writer I have read with more consistent pleasure and sympathy over the years." Now, with her fine new novel, Lurie returns to the setting that have delighted her fans throughout her long career the university campus.

    An energetic and attractive forty, Jane Mackenzie is the administrative director at Corinth Universitys Center for the Humanities. Unfortunately, her formerly healthy and athletic husband Alan, a history fellow at the center, has suffered a debilitating back injury and is becoming more and more dependent on Jane. But with the arrival of Delia Delaney, a pre-Raphaelite beauty, bestselling writer, and the newest celebrity at the center, Alan gradually begins to recover, becoming well enough for a not-so-harmless liaison. Meanwhile, Jane, who all her life has tried to be a good woman, finds herself falling in love with Delias husband.

    A modern social satire that recalls the best of David Lodge and Mary McCarthy, Truth and Consequences is one of Luries finest works, echoing her popular university novels Foreign Affairs and The War Between the Tates. [via]

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  • Valley of Horses
    by Jean M. Auel
    ISBN 0609610988 (0-609-61098-8)
    Hardcover, Crown Pub

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    Book summary:

    The second volume of the astonishing Earths Children® seriesover 34 million copies sold worldwide

    In The Valley of Horses, Ayla, the unforgettable heroine of The Clan of the Cave Bear, sets out on her own odyssey of discovery away from the nurturing adoptive family and friends of the Clan. She is in search of others like herself and in search of love. Driven by her intelligence, her curiosity, and her destiny, she explores where the Clan never dared to travel and encounters a hostile world of awesome mystery, glacial cold, terrifying beasts, and intense loneliness in which survival itself is a constant battle.

    Sharing a hidden valley with a herd of steppe horses, Ayla finds a unique friendship with animals as vulnerable as herself and ingeniously discovers the complex skills needed to surviveskills no Clan member was ever able to master. But none of her experiences prepares her for the emotional turmoil she feels when she rescues a young manthe first of the Others she has seenfrom almost certain death. Torn between her desire for human companionship and her fear of the unknown Others, she struggles against her deep attraction to the handsome Jondalar. It is Jondalar who teaches her the meaning of true friendship and love.

    Once again, Jean M. Auel uses her powerful storytelling talents and her thorough understanding of human nature to take us on an amazing journey into the primordial past, re-creating the prehistoric world as it truly might have been in this compelling and timeless new epic of the dawn of civilization. [via]

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  • Violet & Claire
    by Francesca Lia Block
    ISBN 0613301773 (0-613-30177-3)
    Hardcover, Bt Bound

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    Book summary:

    Francesca Lia Block has gained a tremendous following writing stories about the young denizens of Los Angeles that are simultaneously ethereal and utterly tangible. Titles such as The Hanged Man, Dangerous Angels, Girl Goddess #9, and I Was a Teenage Fairy explore the heaviest issues facing teens--including all variety of sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll--with the light touch of skillful poet. In Violet and Claire, Block once again exposes us to both the best and the worst of the City of Angels, as we trace the rise and fall of a female friendship from thrilling expectations to soul-squelching excess.

    Set against the glittering background of Hollywood, Block's work has long been marked by an intensely visual style, so it is perhaps appropriate that this story opens like a screenplay: "FADE IN: The helicopter circles, whirring in a sky the color of laundered-to-the-perfect-fade-jeans. Clouds like the wigs of starlets--fluffy platinum spun floss." The script theme continues with chapter subheadings such as "EXT: HIGH SCHOOL QUAD--DAY" and "INT: LIMO--NIGHT" while teenage wannabe filmmaker Violet and gossamer-winged poet Claire take turns telling their story. Everywhere Violet is dark, Claire resonates light. And as they make the arduous journey toward adulthood by way of the silver screen dream, it is this essential oppositeness that both draws the two together and drives them apart. Luckily, there's a Hollywood ending for the yin-yang duo, "the photo negative of each other, together making the perfect image of a girl." (Ages 12 and older) --Brangien Davis [via]

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  • Weetzie Bat
    by Francesca Lia Block
    ISBN 0613371712 (0-613-37171-2)
    Hardcover, Bt Bound

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    Book summary:

    Fifteen years ago Francesca Lia Block made a dazzling entrance into the literary scene with what would become one of the most talked-about books of the decade: Weetzie Bat. This poetic roller coaster swoop has a sleek new design to match its new sister and brother books, Goat Girls and Beautiful Boys. Rediscover the magic of Weetzie Bat, Ms. Blocks sophisticated, slinkster-cool love song to L.A.the book that shattered the standard, captivated readers of all generations, and made Francesca Lia Block one of the most heralded authors of the last decade.

    [via]

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  • Olson, Shannon: Welcome to My Planet : Where English Is Sometimes Spoken
    Welcome to My Planet : Where English Is Sometimes Spoken
    by Shannon Olson
    ISBN 0670892084 (0-670-89208-4)
    Hardcover, Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated

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  • Leavitt, David: While England Sleeps
    While England Sleeps
    by David Leavitt
    ISBN 0670833495 (0-670-83349-5)
    Hardcover, Penguin USA

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  • White Noise
    by Don Delillo
    ISBN 0670803731 (0-670-80373-1)
    Hardcover, Penguin Group USA

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    Book summary:

    Something is amiss in a small college town in Middle America. Something subliminal, something omnipresent, something hard to put your finger on. For example, teachers and students at the grade school are falling mysteriously ill:

    Investigators said it could be the ventilating system, the paint or varnish, the foam insulation, the electrical insulation, the cafeteria food, the rays emitted by microcomputers, the asbestos fireproofing, the adhesive on shipping containers, the fumes from the chlorinated pool, or perhaps something deeper, finer-grained, more closely woven into the fabric of things.
    J.A.K. Gladney, world-renowned as the living center, the absolute font, of Hitler Studies in North America in the mid-1980s, describes the malaise affecting his town in a superbly ironic and detached manner. But even he fails to mask his disquiet. There is menace in the air, and ultimately it is made manifest: a poisonous cloud--an "airborne toxic event"--unleashed by an industrial accident floats over the town, requiring evacuation. In the aftermath, as the residents adjust to new and blazingly brilliant sunsets, Gladney and his family must confront their own poses, night terrors, self-deceptions, and secrets.

    DeLillo is at his dark, hilarious best in this 1985 National Book Award winner, a novel that preceded but anticipated the explosion of the Internet, tabloid television, and the dialed-in, wired-up, endlessly accelerated tenor of the culture we live in. He doesn't just describe life in a hypermediated society, he re-creates it. His characters repeat phrases, information, and rumor gleaned from television, radio, and other media sources like people speaking in code. And DeLillo has seeded the book with short gemlike episodes that demand to be read aloud, and that haunt the imagination years after their first reading: a visit to the Most Photographed Barn in America. A plane that nearly falls out of the sky. An hour in a classroom, canonizing Elvis. These vignettes are vivid and unique, yet, like the phrases from television shows that interject themselves, out of context, into Gladney's consciousness, they are strangely unconnected to one another--reflections of the lives DeLillo is showing us we lead. --Jan Bultmann [via]

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  • Young-Eisendrath, Polly: Women and Desire: Beyond Wanting to Be Wanted
    Women and Desire: Beyond Wanting to Be Wanted
    by Polly Young-Eisendrath
    ISBN 0609805304 (0-609-80530-4)
    Softcover, Crown Publishing Group

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