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Last Night at the Blue Angel
Last Night at the Blue Angel
Rotert, Rebecca
¥83.92
Set against the turbulence of 1960s Chicago—a city in transformation—and its legendary jazz scene, Last Night at the Blue Angel is a lush and immensely heartfelt mother-daughter tale about a talented but troubled singer’s relationship with her precocious ten-year-old daughter.It is the early 1960s, and Chicago is teeming with the tensions of the day—segregation, sexual experimentation, the Cold War and Vietnam—but it is also home to some of the country’s most influential jazz. Naomi Hill, a singer at the Blue Angel club, has been poised on the brink of stardom for nearly ten years. But when her big break, the cover of Look magazine, finally arrives, it carries with it an enormous personal cost. Sensual and magnetic, Naomi is a fiercely ambitious yet self-destructive woman whose charms tend to hurt those around her, and no one knows this better than her daughter, Sophia.As the only child of a single mother growing up in an adult world, Sophia is wise beyond her years, a casualty of her mother’s desperate struggle for fame and adoration. Unsettled by her home life, she harbors a terrible fear that her world could disappear at any moment, and compulsively maintains a list of everyday objects she might need to reinvent should nuclear catastrophe strike. Her only constant is the colorful and unconventional family that surrounds her and her mother, particularly the photographer, Jim, who is Sophia’s best friend, surrogate father, and protector—but Jim is also deeply in love with Naomi.Weaving between the perspectives of Sophia and Naomi, Last Night at the Blue Angel is a poignant and unforgettable story about what happens when our passion for the life we want is at sharp odds with the life we have. Part stylish period piece, part heartbreaking family drama, it’s a novel rife with revelations, a vivid and propulsive page-turner—and the major debut of an extraordinary new writer.
The Marrowbone Marble Company
The Marrowbone Marble Company
Taylor, Glenn
¥83.92
From the author of The Ballad of Trenchmouth Taggart, a finalist for the 2009 National Book Critics Circle Award, comes this sweeping novel of love and war, power and oppression, faith and deception, over the course of three defining american decades. 1941. Loyal Ledford works the swing shift tending furnace at the Mann Glass factory in Huntington, West Virginia. He courts Rachel, the boss's daughter, a company nurse with spike-straight posture and coal-black hair. But when Pearl Harbor is attacked, Ledford, like so many young men of his time, sets his life on a new course.Upon his return from service in the war, Ledford starts a family with Rachel, but he chafes under the authority at Mann Glass. He is a lost man, disconnected from the present and haunted by his violent past, until he meets his cousins, the Bonecutter brothers. Their land, mysterious, elemental Marrowbone Cut, calls to Ledford, and it is there, with help from an unlikely bunch, that the Marrowbone Marble Company is slowly forged. Over the next two decades, the factory grounds become a vanguard of the civil rights movement and the war on poverty, a home for those intent on change. Such a home inevitably invites trouble, and Ledford must fight for his family. Returning to the West Virginia territory of the critically acclaimed The Ballad of Trenchmouth Taggart, Glenn Taylor recounts the transformative journey of a man and his community. Told in clean and powerful prose in the tradition of Cormac McCarthy and John Irving, The Marrowbone Marble Company takes a harrowing look at the issues of race and class throughout the tumultuous 1950s and '60s. It is a story of struggle and loss, righteousness and redemption, and it can only be found in the hills of Marrowbone.
Life Sentences
Life Sentences
Lippman, Laura
¥83.92
Author Cassandra Fallows has achieved remarkable success by baring her life on the page. Her two widely popular memoirs continue to sell briskly, acclaimed for their brutal, unexpurgated candor about friends, family, lovers—and herself. But now, after a singularly unsuccessful stab at fiction, Cassandra believes she may have found the story that will enable her triumphant return to nonfiction.When Cassandra was a girl, growing up in a racially diverse middle-class neighborhood in Baltimore, her best friends were all black: elegant, privileged Donna; sharp, shrewd Tisha; wild and worldly Fatima. A fifth girl orbited their world—a shy, quiet, unobtrusive child named Calliope Jenkins—who, years later, would be accused of killing her infant son. Yet the boy's body was never found and Calliope's unrelenting silence on the subject forced a judge to jail her for contempt. For seven years, Calliope refused to speak and the court was finally forced to let her go. Cassandra believes this still unsolved real-life mystery, largely unknown outside Baltimore, could be her next bestseller.But her homecoming and latest journey into the past will not be welcomed by everyone, especially by her former friends, who are unimpressed with Cassandra's success—and are insistent on their own version of their shared history. And by delving too deeply into Calliope's dark secrets, Cassandra may inadvertently unearth a few of her own—forcing her to reexamine the memories she holds most precious, as the stark light of truth illuminates a mother's pain, a father's betrayal . . . and what really transpired on a terrible day that changed not only a family but an entire country.
Voice of America
Voice of America
Osondu, E.C.
¥83.92
An electrifying debut from a winner of the Caine Prize for African WritingE. C. Osondu is a fearless and passionate new writer, whose stories echo the joys and struggles of a cruel, beautiful world. His characters burst from the page—they fight, beg, love, grieve, but ultimately they are dreamers. Set in Nigeria and the United States, Voice of America moves from the fears and dreams of boys and girls in villages and refugee camps to the disillusionment and confusion of young married couples living in America, and then back to bustling Lagos. In "Waiting," two young refugees make their way through another day, fighting for meals and hoping for a miracle that will carry them out of the camp; in "A Simple Case," the boyfriend of a prostitute is rounded up by the local police and must charm his fellow prisoners for protection and survival; and in "Miracle Baby," the trials of pregnancy and mothers-in-law are laid bare in a woman’s return to her homeland. Each of the eighteen stories here possesses a voice at once striking and elegant, capturing the dramatic lives of an unforgettable cast of characters.Written with exhilarating energy and warmth, the stories of Voice of America are full of humor, pathos, and wisdom, marking the debut of an extraordinary new talent.
Faith
Faith
Haigh, Jennifer
¥83.92
It is the spring of 2002 and a perfect storm has hit Boston. Across the city's archdiocese, trusted priests have been accused of the worst possible betrayal of the souls in their care. In Faith, Jennifer Haigh explores the fallout for one devout family, the McGanns.Estranged for years from her difficult and demanding relatives, Sheila McGann has remained close to her older brother Art, the popular, dynamic pastor of a large suburban parish. When Art finds himself at the center of the maelstrom, Sheila returns to Boston, ready to fight for him and his reputation. What she discovers is more complicated than she imagined. Her strict, lace-curtain-Irish mother is living in a state of angry denial. Sheila's younger brother Mike, to her horror, has already convicted his brother in his heart. But most disturbing of all is Art himself, who persistently dodges Sheila's questions and refuses to defend himself.As the scandal forces long-buried secrets to surface, Faith explores the corrosive consequences of one family's history of silence—and the resilience its members ultimately find in forgiveness. Throughout, Haigh demonstrates how the truth can shatter our deepest beliefs—and restore them. A gripping, suspenseful tale of one woman's quest for the truth, Faith is a haunting meditation on loyalty and family, doubt and belief. Elegantly crafted, sharply observed, this is Jennifer Haigh's most ambitious novel to date.
Odd and the Frost Giants
Odd and the Frost Giants
Gaiman, Neil
¥83.92
In this inventive, short, yet perfectly formed novel inspired by traditional Norse mythology, Neil Gaiman takes readers on a wild and magical trip to the land of giants and gods and back.In a village in ancient Norway lives a boy named Odd, and he's had some very bad luck: His father perished in a Viking expedition; a tree fell on and shattered his leg; the endless freezing winter is making villagers dangerously grumpy.Out in the forest Odd encounters a bear, a fox, and an eagle—three creatures with a strange story to tell.Now Odd?is forced on a stranger journey than he had imagined—a journey to save Asgard, city of the gods, from the Frost Giants who have invaded it.It's going to take a very special kind of twelve-year-old boy to outwit the Frost Giants, restore peace to the city of gods, and end the long winter.Someone cheerful and infuriating and clever . . . Someone just like Odd .
Martha Quest
Martha Quest
Lessing, Doris
¥83.92
Intelligent, sensitive, and fiercely passionate, Martha Quest is a young woman living on a farm in Africa, feeling her way through the torments of adolescence and early womanhood. She is a romantic idealistic in revolt against the puritan snobbery of her parents, trying to live to the full with every nerve, emotion, and instinct laid bare to experience. For her, this is a time of solitary reading daydreams, dancing -- and the first disturbing encounters with sex. The first of Doris Lessing's timeless Children of Violence novels, Martha Quest is an endearing masterpiece.
Natural Flights of the Human Mind
Natural Flights of the Human Mind
Morrall, Clare
¥83.92
Peter Straker lives in a converted lighthouse on the Devon coast with a fine view of the sea, two cats, and no neighbors. That's just the way he likes it. He speaks to no one except in his dreams, where he converses with some of the seventy-eight people he believes he killed nearly a quarter-century earlier -- though he can't quite remember how it happened. But Straker's carefully preserved solitude is about to be invaded by Imogen Doody, a prickly and unapproachable school caretaker with a painful history herself. Against his will -- and hers -- Straker soon finds himself helping Imogen repair the run-down cottage she's inherited. There are forces gathering, however, as the twenty-fifth anniversary of Straker's crime approaches, and they're intent upon disturbing his precarious peace.
Dirt
Dirt
Vann, David
¥83.92
The year is 1985, and twenty-two-year-old Galen lives with his emotionally dependent mother in a secluded old house surrounded by a walnut orchard in a suburb of Sacramento. He doesn't know who his father is, his abusive grandfather is dead, and his grandmother, losing her memory, has been shipped off to a nursing home. Galen and his mother survive on the family's trust fund—old money that his aunt, Helen, and seventeen-year-old cousin, Jennifer, are determined to get their hands on. Galen, a New Age believer who considers himself an old soul, yearns for transformation: to free himself from the corporeal, to be as weightless as air, to walk on water. But he's powerless to stop the manic binges that overtake him, leading him to fixate on forbidden desires. A prisoner of his body, he is obsessed with thoughts of the boldly flirtatious Jennifer and dreams of shedding himself of the clinging mother whose fears and needs weigh him down. When the family takes a trip to an old cabin in the Sierras, near South Lake Tahoe, tensions crescendo. Caught in a compromising position, Galen will discover the shocking truth of just how far he will go to attain the transcendence he craves. An exhilarating portrayal of a legacy of violence and madness, Dirt is an entirely feverish read.
A Girl Walks Into a Bar
A Girl Walks Into a Bar
Paige, Helena S.
¥83.92
How will your night out end?You make the rules.You're at one of the hottest bars in town, all dressed up for a fabulous girls' night out with your best friend, when she cancels. What do you do now?In this novel, YOU make the decisions.Will you do body shots with a rock starCozy up to the hot bartenderFollow a mysterious woman to a rather unusual exhibitionInvestigate a suave millionaire's box of tricksTake a joyride with a buff bodyguardOr maybe what you want is closer to home than you realize. . . .So many options. . . . All you have to do is choose.
Hotel Living
Hotel Living
Pappos, Ioannis
¥83.92
"I'm homeless, but in first class."Stathis Rakis has abandoned his small Greek village for a more worldly life, first in San Francisco, where the dot-com bubble had already burst, and then in Paris, France, at a top business school. After falling in love with a liberal New England journalist with a good conscience (but with some scores to settle), Stathis moves to the United States to work as a management consultant for a high-octane company called Command. He spends the very few hours of the day that aren't consumed by work draining the minibar of whichever five-star hotel he's currently calling home, battling insomnia, and bingeing on more than room service. Luxury is a given; happiness is not.As the economy recovers and a new bubble expands in a post-9/11 world, Stathis drifts upward, bearing witness to the criminal decadence that will become the 2008 financial crisis while developing his own habits of indulgence—drugs, sex, and insider trading. In a world of insatiability that features both corporate suits and Hollywood hedonism, Stathis remains the outsider: too foreign to be one of them, too cynical to turn back.
Black Sun
Black Sun
Abbey, Edward
¥83.92
Black Sun is a bittersweet love story involving an iconoclastic forest ranger and a freckle-faced "American princess" half his age. Like Lady Chatterley's lover, he initiates her into the rites of sex and the stark, secret harmonies of his wilderness. She, in turn, awakens in him the pleasure of love. Then she mysteriously disappears, plunging him into desolation. Black Sun is a singular novel in Abbey's repertoire, a romantic story of a solitary man's passion for the outdoors and for a woman who is seeing the natural world's true colors for the first time. "Like most honest novels, Black Sun is partly autobiographical, mostly invention, and entirely true. The voice that speaks in this book is the passionate voice of the forest," Abbey writes, "the madness of desire, and the joy of love, and the anguish of final loss."Edward Abbey spent most of his life in the American Southwest. He was the author of numerous works of fiction and nonfiction, including the celebrated Desert Solitaire, which decried the waste of America's wilderness, and the novel The Monkey Wrench Gang, the title of which is still in use today to describe groups that purposefully sabotage projects and entities that degrade the environment. Abbey was also one of the country's foremost defenders of the natural environment. He died in 1989.
The Devil and Miss Prym
The Devil and Miss Prym
Coelho, Paulo
¥83.92
A stranger arrives at the remote village of Viscos, carrying with him a backpack containing a notebook and eleven gold bars. He comes searching for the answer to a question that torments him: Are human beings, in essence, good or evilIn welcoming the mysterious foreigner, the whole village becomes an accomplice to his sophisticated plot, which will forever mark their lives. A novel of temptation by the internationally bestselling author Paulo Coelho, The Devil and Miss Prym is a thought-provoking parable of a community devoured by greed, cowardice, and fear as it struggles with the choice between good and evil.
666 Park Avenue
666 Park Avenue
Pierce, Gabriella
¥83.92
What if your mother-in-law turned out to be evil. . . literallyEver since fabulously wealthy Malcolm Doran walked into her life and swept her off her feet, fledgling architect Jane Boyle has been living a fairy tale. When he proposes with a stunning diamond to seal the deal, Jane can't believe her incredible luck and decides to leave her Paris-based job to make a new start with Malcolm in New York. But when Malcolm introduces Jane to the esteemed Doran clan, one of Manhattan most feared and revered families, Jane fairy tale takes a darker turn. Soon everything she thought she knew about the world and herself is upended. Now Jane must struggle with newfound magical abilities and the threat of those who will stop at nothing to get them. Cover Art ABC 2012 ABC logo is a registered trademark of American Broadcasting Companies, Inc. 2012 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Twenty-five Books That Shaped America
Twenty-five Books That Shaped America
Foster, Thomas C.
¥83.92
From the author of the New York Times bestselling How to Read Literature Like a Professor comes a highly entertaining and informative new book on the twenty-five works of literature that have most shaped the American character. Foster applies his much-loved combination of wit, know-how, and analysis to explain how each work has shaped our very existence as readers, students, teachers, and Americans. Foster illuminates how books such as The Last of the Mohicans , Moby-Dick , My ?ntonia , The Great Gatsby , The Maltese Falcon , Their Eyes Were Watching God , On the Road , The Crying of Lot 49 , and others captured an American moment, how they influenced our perception of nationhood and citizenship, and what about them endures in the American character. Twenty-five Books That Shaped America is a fun and enriching guide to America through its literature.
Coming of Age on Zoloft
Coming of Age on Zoloft
Sharpe, Katherine
¥83.92
When Katherine Sharpe arrived at her college health center with an age-old complaint, a bad case of homesickness, she received a thoroughly modern response: a twenty-minute appointment and a pre*ion for Zoloft a drug she would take for the next ten years. This outcome, once unlikely, is now alarmingly common. Twenty-five years after Prozac entered the marketplace, 10 percent of Americans over the age of six use an SSRI antidepressant.In Coming of Age on Zoloft, Sharpe blends deeply personal writing, thoughtful interviews, and historical context to achieve an unprecedented portrait of the antidepressant generation. She explores questions of identity that arise for people who start medication before they have an adult sense of self. She asks why some individuals find a diagnosis of depression reassuring, while others are threatened by it. She presents, in young people's own words, their intimate and complicated relationships with their medication. And she weighs the cultural implications of America's biomedical approach to moods.
The Ten Commandments
The Ten Commandments
Fox, Emmet
¥83.92
The master key to life--a universal guide to all that matters in making life more satisfying.
She
She
Johnson, Robert A.
¥83.92
A revised edition of a landmark work of psychology; the author uses the ancient myth of Amor and Psyche as the springboard for a brilliant, perceptive exploration of how one becomes a mature and complete woman.
Don't Know Much About Literature
Don't Know Much About Literature
Davis, Kenneth C.
¥83.92
From Homer to Harry Potter, from Chaucer to Charlotte's Web, acompelling book of quizzes on history's most influential literary worksand writers Did a whale named "Mocha Dick" inspire Melville's masterpieceWho was the first poet to speak at a presidential inaugurationWhich French-speaking high school football star shook up the literary worldDo you freeze when someone mentions FaulknerWhen the conversation turns to the Odyssey, do you want to take a hikeHave no fear. For years, Kenneth C. Davis's New York Times bestselling Don't Know Much About books have enlightened and enthralled us with a winning blend of fascinating facts and wonderfully irreverent fun. Now he sets his sights on our literary IQ in Don't Know Much About Literature. With this rich treasure trove of knowledge and intriguing information about the world's great books and authors, Kenneth Davis and his daughter, Jenny, demystify Dracula, capture Kafka, and help you brush up on your Bront in the inimitable and endlessly entertaining Don't Know Much About style.
The Crone
The Crone
Walker, Barbara G.
¥83.92
A probing account of the honored place of older women in ancient matriarchal societies restores to contemporary women an energizing symbol of self-value, power, and respect.
American Son
American Son
De La Hoya, Oscar
¥83.92
From Oscar De La Hoya, one of the most celebrated fighters in the history of boxing, comes a frank and touching memoir about achieving the American Dream: his rise to the top, the power of a solid work ethic, his mother's painful death from cancer, the pitfalls of stardom, and a very personal take on what it means to be an American The son of Mexican-born parents, Oscar "The Golden Boy" De La Hoya has had an astonishing career. From boxing to business, from the recording industry to the charitable accomplishments of his foundation, his success is a testament to what one can achieve in the United States. But who is this man who has changed the lives of so manyWho has imprinted a positive mark upon the sport of boxing, for which many have all but given up hopeWho has become a symbol of success for an entire community, without many heroes to call their own?American Son answers these questions.Born into a boxing family, De La Hoya has defeated more than a dozen world champions and won six world titles as well as an Olympic gold medal a moment forever marked in the memory of anyone who has followed his career. Yet within the maelstrom of this success lay a man whose earnest belief in the goodness of everyone around him sometimes led him to stray far from his intended path. This book is The Golden Boy, and he bares his most heartbreaking mistakes as well as his most stunning triumphs for all of the world to see. This thrilling tale of an immigrant's son a quintessentially American story is the chronicle of an amazing journey that will provide readers with new insight into the private life of a figure who has to many reached iconic status.