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Triburbia
Triburbia
Greenfeld, Karl Taro
¥84.16
Thrown together by circumstance, a group of fathers—a sound engineer, a sculptor, a film producer, a chef, a memoirist, a gangster—meets each morning at a local Tribeca coffee shop after walking their children to their exclusive school. The sound engineer looks uncomfortably like the guy on the sex offender posters strewn around the neighborhood; the memoirist is on the verge of being outed for fabricating his experiences; and the narcissistic chef puts his quest for the perfect quail-egg frittata before his children's well-being. Over the course of a single school year, we are privy to their secrets, passions, and hopes, and learn of their dreams deferred as they confront harsh realities about ambition, wealth, and sex. And we meet their wives and children, who together with these men are discovering the hard truths and welcome surprises that accompany family, marriage, and real estate at midlife.Fascinatingly layered and multidimensional, these linked stories, arranged like puzzle pieces, create a powerful portrait of unlikely friends and their neighborhood in transition. Striking chords that range from haunting and heartbreaking to darkly funny and deeply poignant, Triburbia marks the start of a brilliant literary career.
Going Buck Wild
Going Buck Wild
Foxx, Nina
¥84.16
Let's go crazy!Successful Claudia Barrett seems to be doing it all right. She's a vice president at her firm, with an engagement ring on her finger from the man who's loved her since high school. So what if she's been wearing it for five years -- and her classic, expensive, dull everyday outfits make her look like someone fatally allergic to a good time?What exactly is wrong with the girl?She's bored, for one thing. She's thirty years old and in a rut -- and best friend, Pam, thinks it's time Claudia got her freak on. It's time to inject a little action, adventure, and good old-fashioned lust into this sister's life. But practicing what Pam is preaching and going buck wild could have some serious consequences, especially when tall, dark, and dangerous Cody is added to the mix.
The Miracles of Prato
The Miracles of Prato
Albanese, Laurie
¥84.16
Italy, 1456. The Renaissance is in glorious bloom. A Carmelite monk, the great artist Fra Filippo Lippi acts as chaplain to the nuns of the Convent Santa Margherita. It is here that he encounters the greatest temptation of his life, beautiful Lucrezia Buti, who has been driven to holy orders more by poverty than piety. In Lucrezia's flawless face Lippi sees the inspiration for countless Madonnas and he brings the young woman to his studio to serve as his model. But as painter and muse are united in an exhilarating whirl of artistic discovery, a passionate love develops, one that threatens to destroy them both even as it fuels some of Lippi's greatest work.
Stay with Me
Stay with Me
Barron, Sandra Rodriguez
¥84.16
In 1979, five toddlers were found alone in a luxury boat tied to a dock in Puerto Rico after a devastating hurricane. No one knew who they were or where they came from. Raised by different families, they remained connected by a special bond—always considering themselves siblings, despite their unknown blood relations.Now adults, Taina, Holly, Adrian, and Raymond have been summoned by the fifth, David, to an island off the coast of Connecticut and the family home of David's ex-girlfriend, Julia. But along with the joy of reuniting comes the exposure of raw places, jealousy, and childhood sorrows. Having been diagnosed with an aggressive form of brain cancer—and experiencing flashbacks to the time before the hurricane—David believes that healing his relationship with Julia and discovering his origins will strengthen his ability to endure and survive. David pushes the people he loves the most to their emotional breaking points in order to uncover the truth about the mystery that both unites and divides them.Intensely gripping and lyrically written, Stay with Me is a magnificent blend of romance, suspense, atmosphere, and intrigue that brilliantly explores the true meaning of family and the remarkable ways a personal history can paint a future.
Sweet Dates in Basra
Sweet Dates in Basra
Jiji, Jessica
¥84.16
Just when her family should be arranging her marriage, Kathmiya Mahmoud, a young Marsh Arab maiden, is sent from her home in Iraq's idyllic countryside to the unfamiliar city of Basra, where she must survive on her paltry earnings as a servant. Her only asset—her exquisite beauty—brings more peril than peace. Worse, her mother appears to be keeping a secret about her own mysterious past, one that could threaten Kathmiya's destiny forever.In this lost Iraq of the 1940s, a time of rich traditions and converging worlds, Kathmiya meets Shafiq, a Jewish boy whose brotherhood with his Muslim neighbor Omar proves that religion is no barrier to friendship. But in a world where loss of honor is punishable by death, the closeness that grows between Kathmiya and Shafiq becomes dangerous as a doomed love takes root. When British warplanes begin bombing Iraq and the country's long-simmering tensions explode, the power of an unbreakable boyhood bond and a transcendent love must overcome the deepening fractures of a collapsing society. Set during the tumultuous years surrounding the Second World War, Sweet Dates in Basra is the redemptive story of two very different cultures, and a powerful reminder that no walls can confine the human spirit.
Watermark
Watermark
Sankaran, Vanitha
¥84.16
The daughter of a papermaker in a small French village in the year 1320—mute from birth and forced to shun normal society—young Auda finds solace and escape in the wonder of the written word. Believed to be cursed by those who embrace ignorance and superstition, Auda's very survival is a testament to the strength of her spirit. But this is an age of Inquisition and intolerance, when difference and defiance are punishable "sins" and new ideas are considered damnable heresy. When darkness descends upon her world, Auda—newly grown to womanhood—is forced to flee, setting off on a remarkable quest to discover love and a new sense of self . . . and to reclaim her heritage and the small glory of her father's art.
More Than Words Can Say
More Than Words Can Say
Barclay, Robert
¥84.16
From the author of If Wishes Were Horses comes a novel of long-buried secrets and self-discovery, showing us that sometimes what goes unsaid is more powerful than words. . . .Chelsea Enright never expected to inherit her grandmother's lakeside cottage deep in the Adirondacks—a serene getaway that had been mysteriously closed up decades ago. This is no simple bequest, however, because when Chelsea finds her grandmother's WWII diaries, she's stunned to discover that they hold secrets she never suspected . . . and they have the power to turn her own life upside down.Even more surprising is the compelling presence of local doctor Brandon "Yale, and Chelsea soon finds her "short stay" has stretched into the entire summer. She cannot put this cottage and her family's past behind her easily—and the more she learns about the woman her grandmother truly was, the more Chelsea's own life begins to change . . . and nothing will ever be the same again.
Separate Kingdoms
Separate Kingdoms
Laken, Valerie
¥84.16
From Valerie Laken, the Pushcart Prize–winning author of Dream House, comes a powerful collection of short stories charting the divisions and collisions between cultures and nations, families and outsiders, and partners and misfits searching for love. Set in Russia and the United States, these are boldly innovative stories—tales of fractured, misplaced characters moving beyond the borders of their isolation and reaching for the connections that will make them whole.A family, shaken by an industrial accident, is divided, its members isolated in their home and only able to understand one another from their separate rooms. A young gay couple travels to Russia to meet the child they're desperately trying to adopt, but the experience reveals an emotional divide between the parents-to-be. A recent amputee removes herself from her body to keep her husband at bay. And the idyllic village life of a blind Russian boy is disrupted by an American dentist and the wonders of racy Western magazines. Separate Kingdoms is a rich and satisfying collection that traverses the distances between people and places in each marvelously rendered story.
Impossibly Tongue-Tied
Impossibly Tongue-Tied
Brown, Josie
¥84.16
All over Hollywood, men are dialing O—for orgasms. Her steamy naughty talk fills them with lust and longing, and helps them perform like the studs they claim to be.In truth, the industry's favorite "erotic phone operatrix" is Nina Harte, a struggling actress who has put her career on hold so that her husband, Nathan, can pursue his own dreams of stardom. When Nathan's career takes off, so does he, leaving Nina and their four-year-old son, Jake, for his diva costar, Katerina McPherson. Then "Kat 'n' Nat" are crowned the media's newest celebrity sweethearts, and Kat labels Nina an unfit mother in order to win custody of Jake, just so that she can have that highly-coveted celebrity accessory—an adorable child—sans any unsightly stretch marks. The one person who does care about Nina is Nathan's agent, Sam Godwin. In fact, he's in love with her. And because he has both a heart and a conscience, Sam feels guilty for having put Nat in Kat's path in the first place . . . Then again, how will he feel when he learns that Nina and O are one and the same?
Love in the Time of Taffeta
Love in the Time of Taffeta
Olson, Eugenie
¥84.16
At age 30, Iley Gilbert is thoroughly sick of trying to make it in the photo biz, and disenchanted after putting in stints at a Boston-area newspaper, a photography gallery, and even a pathetic frame shop. When she abruptly quits the frame shop, she's ready to give up for good, until she spots a compelling ad in the paper. A photographer who shoots high school prom photos is looking for an assistant. Not only that, He's willing to pay top dollar to someone who would give up Friday and Saturday nights to help take pre-prom pictures of high-school kids dressed in their finery and candid shots during the dance. William Jasper, Prom Photographer, is not the brand of aging, greasy wedding photographer she was expecting. Rather, He's 35, strikingly handsome, and sharp-witted. Iley is instantly attracted to him and gets the sense the feeling is mutual. But William isn't everything He's made himself out to be that is, he's not single. He's got a permanently out-of town wife-he doesn't need a girlfriend. But Iley has lost her way, and she-ll need her friends and her photos and a lot of bad proms before she can find her way back on track, away from the sleezeball, and into a life that-s a little more picture-perfect.
Displaced Persons
Displaced Persons
Schwarz, Ghita
¥84.16
Moving from the Allied zones of postwar Germany to New York City, an astonishing novel of grief and anger, memory and survival witnessed through the experiences of "displaced persons" struggling to remake their lives in the decades after World War II In May 1945, Pavel Mandl, a Polish Jew recently liberated from a concentration camp, lands near a displaced persons camp in the British occupation zone of newly defeated Germany. Alone, possessing nothing but a map, a few tins of food, a toothbrush, and his identity papers, he must scrape together a new life in a chaotic community of refugees, civilians, and soldiers. Gifted with a talent for black-market trading, Pavel soon procures clothing, false documents, and a modest house, where he installs himself and a pair of fellow refugees—Fela, a young widow who fled Poland for Russia at the outset of the war, and Chaim, a resourceful teenage boy whose smuggling skills have brought him to the Western zones. The trio soon form a makeshift family, searching for surviving relatives, railing against their circumscribed existence, and dreaming of visas to America.Fifteen years later, haunted by decisions they made as "DPs," Pavel and Fela are married and living in Queens with their young son and daughter, and Chaim has recently emigrated from Israel with his wife, Sima. Pavel opens a small tailoring shop with his scheming brother-in-law while Fela struggles to establish peace in a loosely traditional household; Chaim and Sima adapt cheerfully to American life and its promise of freedom from a brutal past. Their lives are no longer dominated by the need to endure, fight, hide, or escape. Instead, they grapple with past trauma in everyday moments: taking the children to the municipal pool, shopping for liquor, arguing with landlords.For decades, Pavel, Fela, and Chaim battle over memory and identity on the sly, within private groups of survivors. But as the Iron Curtain falls in the 1990s, American society starts to embrace the tragedy as a cultural commodity, and survivor politics go public. Clever and stubborn, tyrannical and generous, Pavel, Fela, and Chaim articulate the self-conscious strivings of an immigrant community determined to write its own history, on its own terms.In Displaced Persons, Ghita Schwarz reveals the interior despairs and joys of immigrants shaped by war—ordinary men and women who have lived through cataclysmic times—and illuminates changing cultural understandings of trauma and remembrance.
Wildalone
Wildalone
Zourkova, Krassi
¥84.16
In this darkly imaginative debut novel full of myth, magic, romance, and mystery, a Princeton freshman is drawn into a love triangle with two enigmatic brothers and discovers terrifying secrets about her family and herself—a bewitching blend of Twilight, The Secret History, Jane Eyre, and A Discovery of WitchesFor every world, there is an underworld. Arriving at Princeton for her freshman year, Thea Slavin finds herself alone, a stranger in a strange land. Away from her family and her Eastern European homeland for the first time, she struggles to adapt to unfamiliar American ways and the challenges of college life—including a young man whose brooding good looks and murky past intrigue her. Drawn to the elusive Rhys and his equally handsome and mysterious brother, Jake, she ventures into a sensual mythic underworld as irresistible as it is dangerous.In this shadow world that seems to evoke Greek mythology and the Bulgarian legends of the samodivi, or "wildalones"—forest witches who beguile and entrap men—Thea will discover a family secret bound to transform her forever . . . if she can accept that dead doesn't always mean gone, and love doesn't always distinguish between the two.Mesmerizing and addictive, Wildalone is a thrilling blend of the modern and the fantastical. Krassi Zourkova creates an atmospheric world filled with rich characters as compelling as those of Diana Gabaldon, Deborah Harkness, and Stephenie Meyer.
Ice Shear
Ice Shear
Cooley, M. P.
¥84.16
As a cop on the night shift in Hopewell Falls, New York, June Lyons drives drunks home and picks up the doughnuts. A former FBI agent, she left the Bureau when her husband died, and now she and her young daughter are back in upstate New York, living with her father, the town's retired chief of police.When June discovers a young woman's body impaled on an ice shear in the frozen Mohawk River, news of the murder spreads fast; the dead girl was the daughter of a powerful local congresswoman, and her troubled youth kept the gossips busy. Though June was born and raised in Hopewell Falls, the local police see her as an interloper—resentment that explodes in anger when the FBI arrive and deputize her to work on the murder investigation. But June may not find allies among the feds. The agent heading the case is someone from her past—someone she isn't sure she can trust.As June digs deeper, her already tumultuous murder case turns red-hot when it leads to a notorious biker gang and a meth lab hidden in plain sight—and an unmistakable sign that the river murder won't be the last.
Dwelling Places
Dwelling Places
Wright, Vinita Hampton
¥84.16
Mack and Jodie have no idea how much their lives are going to change when they decide to give up farming. Mack is hospitalized with depression, Jodie finds herself tempted by the affections of another man, and their teenage children begin looking for answers outside the family—Kenzie turns to fundamentalist Christianity, and Taylor starts cavorting with Goths. Told in the unforgettable voices of each family member, this powerful story of family life reveals the stubborn resilience of love and how sometimes the very thing we're looking for has been waiting at home all along.
In the Bag
In the Bag
Klise, Kate
¥84.16
A European vacation. A luggage mix-up. A note from a secret admirer.Meet two single parents who think they're too busy to date. And two teenagers who can't stop writing flirty emails. This is a tale of connections—missed and made—in a universe that seems to have its heart set on reuniting Ms. 6B and Mr. 13C.WebbI can't believe I picked up the wrong bag at the airport. My dad is never going to let me hear the end of it.CocoI don't understand why Mom told me to pack my worst underwear. And now I've lost my bagAck!AndrewI cannot stop thinking about that woman in seat 6B on the flight to Paris.DaisyI don't have time to worry about the creep sitting in 13C who slipped a note in my purse. I have to find my daughter's missing bag before this ruins our vacation.In the Bag is a smart and stylish story that explores the old-fashioned art of romance in a modern world, where falling in love can be as risky as checking a bag on an international flight. Buckle your seat belt—it's going to be a bumpy vacation!
The Girl Below
The Girl Below
Zander, Bianca
¥84.16
Suki Piper is a stranger in her hometown. . . .After ten years in New Zealand, Suki returns to London, to a city that won't let her in. However, a chance visit with Peggy—an old family friend who still lives in the building where she grew up—convinces Suki that there is a way to reconnect with the life she left behind a decade earlier. But the more involved she becomes with Peggy's dysfunctional family, including Peggy's wayward sixteen-year-old grandson, the more Suki finds herself mysteriously slipping back in time—to the night of a party her parents threw in their garden more than twenty years ago, when something happened in an old, long-unused air-raid shelter. . . .A breathtaking whirlwind of mystery, transgression, and self-discovery, Bianca Zander's The Girl Below is a haunting tale of secrets, human frailty, and dark memory that heralds the arrival of an extraordinary new literary talent.
Night Night, Sleep Tight
Night Night, Sleep Tight
Ephron, Hallie
¥84.16
From the award-winning author of There Was an Old Woman comes a mystery tinged with Hollywood glamour, set in a town where fame and infamy are often interchangeableLos Angeles, 1985. When Deirdre Unger makes the drive from San Diego to Beverly Hills to help her father put his dilapidated house on the market, she's expecting to deal with his usual kvetching and dark moods. But she gets a lot more than she expected. . . . In a cruel Sunset Boulevard–in a twist, Deirdre arrives home to find her father facedown in his too-small swimming pool—dead.At first, Deirdre assumes her father's death was a tragic accident. But the longer she stays in town, the more Deirdre begins to suspect that everything isn't as open-and-closed as she first presumed. The sudden resurfacing of Deirdre's childhood BFF Joelen Nichol—daughter of the famous and infamous Elenor "Bunny" Nichol—seems like more than a coincidence. Back in 1963, Joelen confessed to killing her movie-star mother's boyfriend. Deirdre was at the Nichols' house the night of the murder, which was also the night she suffered her own personal tragedy. Could all these events be connected?As Deirdre digs deeper into the past, she becomes increasingly convinced that her father's death is merely the deadly third act in a story that has long been in development. And if she isn't careful, she might be its final victim.
The Boy Who Stole the Leopard's Spots
The Boy Who Stole the Leopard's Spots
Myers, Tamar
¥84.16
A decades-old murder, a strange superstition, an enormous snake, and one giant secret are about to rock the beautiful Belle Vue to its core. It is a time of great upheaval for the Belgian Congo and Belle Vue is not safe from the changes. But there are more pressing problems as an unsolved disappearance brings up issues for some of the denizens of the village. Add to that a sudden influx of strangers and a horrible storm that literally divides the village in half, and suddenly danger seems to be everywhere. The lovely young American missionary Amanda, the police chief Captain Pierre Jardin, and the local witch doctor and his wise-woman wife, Cripple, all become embroiled in the mystery as evil omens and strange happenings at every turn suggest that more lives will be lost before the true killer is unmasked.
Living by Fiction
Living by Fiction
Dillard, Annie
¥84.16
Living by Fiction is written for--and dedicated to--people who love literature. Dealing with writers such as Nabokov, Barth, Coover, Pynchon, Borges, García Márquez, Beckett, and Calvino, Annie Dillard shows why fiction matters and how it can reveal more of the modern world and modern thinking than all the academic sciences combined. Like Joyce Cary's Art and Reality, this is a book by a writer on the issues raised by the art of literature. Readers of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek and Holy the Firm will recognize Dillard's vivid writing, her humor, and the lively way in which she tackles the urgent questions of meaning in experience itself.
Little Beach Street Bakery
Little Beach Street Bakery
Colgan, Jenny
¥84.16
In the bestselling tradition of Jojo Moyes and Jennifer Weiner, Jenny Colgan's moving, funny, and unforgettable novel tells the story of a heartbroken young woman who turns a new page in her life . . . by becoming a baker in the town of CornwallA quiet seaside resort. An abandoned shop. A small flat. This is what awaits Polly Waterford when she arrives at the Cornish coast, fleeing a ruined relationship.To keep her mind off her troubles, Polly throws herself into her favorite hobby: making bread. But her relaxing weekend diversion quickly develops into a passion. As she pours her emotions into kneading and pounding the dough, each loaf becomes better than the last. Soon, Polly is working her magic with nuts and seeds, chocolate and sugar, and the local honey—courtesy of a handsome beekeeper. Packed with laughter and emotion, Little Beach Street Bakery is the story of how one woman discovered bright new life where she least expected—a heartwarming, mouthwatering modern-day Chocolat that has already become a massive international bestseller.Includes 7 Recipes!
Little Pink Raincoat
Little Pink Raincoat
Anders, Gigi
¥84.16
A little Coco Chanel, a lot Carrie Bradshaw, with a dash of Maureen Dowd a hip, hilarious collection of mini-profiles in shopping and romantic courage. From one very fabulous and elusive little pink raincoat (to woo the commitment phobe) to a pair of very persuasive peach panties (gift from a dazzling doc), author Gigi Anders relates her experiences as they deal with her dual obsessions of clothing and men. Here are ten vignettes chronicling ten choice sartorial items and the corresponding boyfriends that would undoubtedly love her stylishly ever after...even if they didn't.Featuring items and boyfriends from Anders's real life, real (extremely jammed) closet, and real bed, Little Pink Raincoat is a very tasty, very funny, universal, uplifting, pop cultural meditation on the things we crave and the lengths we'll go to get them.