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The Canary Trainer: From the Memoirs of John H. Watson, M.D. (The Journals of John H. Watson, M.D. #0)
by Nicholas Meyer"Holmes enthusiasts will again find a story that is true to their hero…Readers who just enjoy a good mystery thriller will appreciate the terse narrative and fast moving action." —Lawrence J. Goodrich, Christian Science MonitorLocated by a computer in the bowels of a major university, this missing manuscript by Dr. John Watson, the biographer of Sherlock Holmes, reveals for the first time a hitherto unknown episode in the life of the Great Detective.The year is 1891, Paris is the capital of the western world, and its opera house is full of surprises. First and by no means least is the sudden reappearance of the great love of Holmes's life, an accomplished singer from Hoboken, New Jersey. Second is the series of seemingly bizarre accidents—each more sinister than the last—allegedly arranged by the "Opera Ghost," an opponent who goes by many names and is more than equal to Holmes. Alone in a strange and spectacular city, with none of his normal resources, Holmes is commissioned to protect a vulnerable young soprano, whose beautiful voice obsesses a creature no one believes is real, but whose jealousy is lethal.In this dazzling sequel to The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, the detective pits wits against a musical maniac, and we are treated to an adventure unlike any other in the archives of Sherlock Holmes.
Heavy Weather
by P. G. Wodehouse“The gardens of Blandings Castle are that original garden from which we are all exiled. All those who know them long to return.” —Evelyn Waugh When Lord Tilbury receives a letter from Galahad Threepwood stating he will no longer be publishing his memoir, he decides to travel to Blandings Castle and steal the manuscript. But he isn’t the only one after the memoir. Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe and Lady Constance Keeble are also trying to lay their hands on it to prevent Ronnie Fish and Sue Brown from getting married. Monty Bodkin, Lord Emsworth’s new secretary, is also after the manuscript in order to secure a year’s employment at the Mammoth Publishing Company. Who will get their hands on the manuscript? Only the Empress of Blandings knows!
The Trojan War Museum: And Other Stories
by Ayse Papatya BucakShort-listed for the 2020 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection “As profound as it is lyrical. The stories are music.” —Marcela Davison Avilés, NPRIn Ayse Papatya Bucak’s dreamlike narratives, dead girls recount gas explosions and a chess-playing automaton falls in love. A student stops eating, and no one knows whether her act is personal or political. A Turkish wrestler, a hero in the East, is seen as a brute in the West. And in the masterful title story, the Greek god Apollo confronts his personal history to memorialize, and make sense of, generations of war. A joy and a provocation, Bucak’s stories confront the nature of memory with humor and myth, performance and authenticity.
Arabian Jazz: A Novel
by Diana Abu-Jaber"This oracular first novel, which unfurls like gossamer [has] characters of a depth seldom found in a debut." —The New YorkerIn Diana Abu-Jaber's "impressive, entertaining" (Chicago Tribune) first novel, a small, poor-white community in upstate New York becomes home to the transplanted Jordanian family of Matussem Ramoud: his grown daughters, Jemorah and Melvina; his sister Fatima; and her husband, Zaeed. The widower Matuseem loves American jazz, kitschy lawn ornaments, and, of course, his daughters. Fatima is obsessed with seeing her nieces married—Jemorah is nearly thirty! Supernurse Melvina is firmly committed to her work, but Jemorah is ambivalent about her identity and role. Is she Arab? Is she American? Should she marry and, if so, whom?Winner of the Oregon Book Award and finalist for the National PEN/Hemingway Award, Arabian Jazz is "a joy to read…You will be tempted to read passages out loud. And you should" (Boston Globe). USA Today praises Abu-Jaber's "gift for dialogue...her Arab-American rings musically, and hilariously, true."
Contents May Have Shifted: A Novel
by Pam Houston“An absorbing, generous, ravishing book by a high priestess of you-have-to-read-this prose." —Cheryl Strayed, author of WildPam Houston, an "early master of the art of rendering fiercely independent, brilliant women in love with the wrong men" (Sarah Norris, Barnes & Noble Review), delivers a novel that whisks us from one breathtaking precipice to the next. Along the way, we unravel the story of Pam (a character not unlike the author), a fearless traveler aiming to leave her metaphorical baggage behind as she seeks a comfort zone in the air. With the help of a loyal cast of friends, body workers, and a new partner who helps her to be at home, she finally finds something like ground under her feet.
People of the Whale: A Novel
by Linda Hogan"With her unparalleled gifts for truth and magic, Linda Hogan reinforces my faith in reading, writing, living." —Barbara KingsolverRaised in a remote seaside village, Thomas Witka Just marries Ruth, his beloved since infancy. But an ill-fated decision to fight in Vietnam changes his life forever: cut off from his Native American community, he fathers a child with another woman. When he returns home a hero, he finds his tribe in conflict over the decision to hunt a whale, both a symbol of spirituality and rebirth and a means of survival. In the end, he reconciles his two existences, only to see tragedy befall the son he left behind.
The Scribe: A Novel
by Matthew GuinnDetectives Canby and Underwood hunt down a serial killer in this “heady mix of history, sizzle, punch, and danger” (Steve Berry, New York Times best-selling author of The Patriot Threat).Disgraced former detective and Civil War veteran Thomas Canby partners with Atlanta’s first African American police officer, Cyrus Underwood, to track down a serial murderer who seems to be targeting the city’s wealthiest black entrepreneurs. Even after the killer is revealed, his astonishing ability to elude capture raises the question: is there such a thing as supernatural evil at loose in the world? Matthew Guinn draws readers into a vortex of tense, atmospheric storytelling, confronting the fears of both old South and new, compelling the reader through a breathless, disturbing finale.A Los Angeles Public Library Best Book of the Year and a Finalist for the Pat Conroy Southern Book Prize.
Country of Origin: A Novel
by Don LeeA dazzling debut novel by the prize-winning author of Yellow, set in the unique and exotic nightworld of Tokyo. In this "poignant story of prejudice, betrayal and the search for identity" (Newsweek International), the trials and tribulations of these three remarkable characters are "at turns trenchantly funny and heartbreakingly sad" (Publishers Weekly). "[An] elegant and haunting debut" (Entertainment Weekly), Country of Origin is a "swirl of action, a whirl of love and sex and race and politics, local and international" (Chicago Tribune)—a "quiet literary triumph" (Booklist) Lisa Countryman is a woman of complex origins. Half-Japanese, adopted by African American parents, she returns to Tokyo, ostensibly to research her thesis on Japan's "sad, brutal reign of conformity." When she vanishes, Tom Hurley, who is half-Korean and half-white, is assigned to her case at the American embassy, as is local cop Kenzo Ota, who is 100 percent Japanese but deemed an outsider.
The Rationing: A Novel
by Charles Wheelan"Part present-day political satire, part Robin Cook thriller, and part pure entertainment." —Lee Woodruff, New York Times best-selling coauthor of In an InstantAmerica is in trouble—at the mercy of a puzzling pathogen. That ordinarily wouldn’t lead to catastrophe, thanks to modern medicine, but there’s just one problem: the government supply of Dormigen, the silver bullet of pharmaceuticals, has been depleted just as demand begins to spike. Originally published before the COVID-19 pandemic, The Rationing is set in the near future, and centers around a White House struggling to quell the crisis—and control the narrative. Working together, just barely, are a savvy but preoccupied president; a Speaker more interested in jockeying for position—and a potential presidential bid—than attending to the minutiae of disease control; a patriotic majority leader unable to differentiate a virus from a bacterium; a strategist with brilliant analytical abilities but abominable people skills; and, improbably, our narrator, a low-level scientist with the National Institutes of Health who happens to be the world’s leading expert in lurking viruses.Little goes according to plan during the three weeks necessary to replenish the stocks of Dormigen. Some Americans will get the life-saving drug and others will not, and nations with their own supply soon offer aid—but for a price. China senses blood and a geopolitical victory, presenting a laundry list of demands that ranges from complete domination of the South China Sea to additional parking spaces at the UN, while India claims it can save the day for the U.S.Political backstabbing, rank hypocrisy, and dastardly deception reign in this delightfully entertaining debut that presciently anticipated the COVID-19 crisis.
Servants of the Map: Stories
by Andrea Barrett"Gemlike stories that sparkle with intelligence and fire." —O, The Oprah Magazine A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, this wonderfully imagined collection from the "genius enchantress" (Karen Russell) author of Ship Fever, winner of the National Book Award, explores the crossroads of science and desire.Servants of the Map sweeps through two centuries, from the Western Himalayas to the Adirondacks, conjuring characters that travel through the territories of yearning and awakening, of loss and unexpected discovery. A mapper of the highest mountain peaks realizes his true obsession. A young woman afire with scientific curiosity must come to terms with a romantic fantasy. Brothers and sisters, torn apart at an early age, are beset by dreams of reunion. As we move through these richly layered tales, Andrea Barrett weaves subtle connections among the stories within this collection and characters in her earlier works.
The Autobiography of Fidel Castro
by Norberto Fuentes"A compelling fictional personage-by turns arrogant, funny, pompous, lewd, self-absorbed and self-deluding."—Michiko Kakutani, New York Times An audacious “biography” of the ex-president of Cuba told in Castro’s own outrageous, bombastic voice. Prize-winning author and journalist Norberto Fuentes was once a revolutionary: a writer with privileged access to Fidel Castro’s inner circle during some the most challenging years of the revolution. But in the late 1990s, as the regime began sending its oldest comrades to the firing squad, he became A Man Who Knew Too Much. Escaping a death sentence and now living in exile, Fuentes has written a brilliant, satirical, and utterly captivating “autobiography” of the Cuban leader—in Fidel’s own arrogant and seductive language—discussing everything from Castro’s early sexual experiences in Birán to his true feelings about Che Guevara and his philosophy on murder, legacy, and state secrets. Critics have long admired Fuentes’s writing; one U.S. article called him “Norman Mailer’s Cuban pen pal.” Akin to Gertrude Stein’s The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, or Edmund Morris’s Dutch, this wickedly entertaining, true-to-life masterpiece is as imaginative and outsized as Castro himself.
Skagboys (Mark Renton)
by Irvine WelshPrequel to the best-selling phenomenon Trainspotting, this exhilarating and moving novel shows how Welsh’s colorful miscreants first went wrong. Mark Renton’s life seems to be on track: university, pretty girlfriend, even social success. But, in this prequel to Trainspotting, after the death of his younger brother, Rent falls apart and starts hanging around with his old pals, including Sick Boy, Spud, and Begbie, and being drawn irresistibly into their wacked-out plans. Set against 1980s Thatcher-era Edinburgh—with its high unemployment, low expectations, and hard-to-come-by money and drugs?Irvine Welsh’s colorful crew lunges from one darkly hilarious misadventure to the next. Gritty, moving, and exhilarating, Skagboys paints their dizzying downward spiral with scabrous humor and raw language.
Beirut Hellfire Society: A Novel
by Rawi Hage“Truly a masterpiece.” —Lawrence JosephOn a ravaged street overlooking a cemetery in a Christian enclave in war-torn 1970s Beirut, we meet Pavlov, the son of a local undertaker. When his father dies suddenly, Pavlov is approached by a member of the mysterious Hellfire Society—an anti-religious sect that arranges secret burial for outcasts denied last rites because of their religion or sexuality. Pavlov agrees to take on his father’s work for the society, and over the course of the novel he becomes a survivor-chronicler of his embattled and faded community at the heart of Lebanon’s civil war.
Run Before the Wind: A Novel (Will Lee Novels)
by Stuart WoodsA breathtaking novel of suspense and high-adventure by New York Times bestselling author Stuart Woods. Will Lee ran from a life of Southern wealth and privilege to spend a peaceful summer on the coast of Ireland. But there is no peace in this beautiful, troubled land. Restless and dissatisfied, Will dreams of shipbuilding and sailing on crystal-blue waters. But an explosion of senseless violence is dragging the young American drifter into a lethal game of terror and revenge. For the fires of hatred rage unchecked in this place of lush, rolling hills and deadly secrets. Now Will Lee must run for his life from a bloody past that is not his own-and he will find no sanctuary on the rolling waves of the Irish sea.
If I Had Two Wings: Stories
by Randall KenanFinalist for 2020 National Book Critics Circle Award in Fiction Longlisted for the 2020 National Book Award for Fiction Finalist for the 2021 Aspen Words Literary Prize Mingling the earthy with the otherworldly, these ten stories chronicle ineffable events in ordinary lives.In Kenan’s fictional territory of Tims Creek, North Carolina, an old man rages in his nursing home, a parson beats up an adulterer, a rich man is haunted by a hog, and an elderly woman turns unwitting miracle worker. A retired plumber travels to Manhattan, where Billy Idol sweeps him into his entourage. An architect who lost his famous lover to AIDS reconnects with a high-school fling. Howard Hughes seeks out the woman who once cooked him butter beans.Shot through with humor and seasoned by inventiveness and maturity, Kenan riffs on appetites of all kinds, on the eerie persistence of history, and on unstoppable lovers and unexpected salvations. If I Had Two Wings is a rich chorus of voices and visions, dreams and prophecies, marked by physicality and spirit. Kenan’s prose is nothing short of wondrous.
The Book That Matters Most: A Novel
by Ann HoodAn enthralling novel about love, loss, secrets, friendship, and the healing power of literature, by the bestselling author of The Knitting Circle. Ava’s twenty-five-year marriage has fallen apart, and her two grown children are pursuing their own lives outside of the country. Ava joins a book group, not only for her love of reading but also out of sheer desperation for companionship. The group’s goal throughout the year is for each member to present the book that matters most to them. Ava rediscovers a mysterious book from her childhood—one that helped her through the traumas of the untimely deaths of her sister and mother. Alternating with Ava’s story is that of her troubled daughter Maggie, who, living in Paris, descends into a destructive relationship with an older man. Ava’s mission to find that book and its enigmatic author takes her on a quest that unravels the secrets of her past and offers her and Maggie the chance to remake their lives.
Once Upon a River: A Novel
by Bonnie Jo Campbell"A demonstration of outstanding skills on the river of American literature." —Entertainment WeeklyBonnie Jo Campbell has created an unforgettable heroine in sixteen-year-old Margo Crane, a beauty whose unflinching gaze and uncanny ability with a rifle have not made her life any easier. After the violent death of her father, Margo takes to the river in search of her mother with only a biography of Annie Oakley to her name. Her river odyssey through rural Michigan becomes a defining journey, one that leads her beyond self-preservation and to deciding what price she is willing to pay for her choices.
We Come to Our Senses: Stories
by Odie LindseyA Military Times Best Book of 2016 An Electric Literature Best Short Story Collection of 2016 "Almost a novel in stories, thematically linked like Phil Klay's Redeployment, but more particular in its examination of the new American veteran." —New York Times Book ReviewLacerating and lyrical, We Come to Our Senses centers on men and women affected by combat directly and tangentially, and the peculiar legacies of war. The story “Evie M.” is about a vet turned office clerk whose petty neuroses derail even her suicide; in “We Come to Our Senses,” a hip young couple leaves the city for the sticks, trading film festivals for firearms; in “Colleen” a woman redeploys to her Mississippi hometown, and confronts the superior who abused her at war; and in “11/19/98” a couple obsesses over sitcoms and retail catalogs, extracting joy and deeper meaning. The story “Hers” is about the sexual politics of a combat zone.
The Bramble and the Rose: A Henry Farrell Novel (The Henry Farrell Series #3)
by Tom BoumanThe newest Henry Farrell mystery from the Edgar Award–winning author of Dry Bones in the Valley.A headless stranger is found in the woods of Wild Thyme, Pennsylvania, and all signs point to a man-killing bear. Officer Henry Farrell would just as soon leave this hunt to the Game Commission, but doubts arise when he discovers the victim was a retired investigator. What drew the investigator to sleepy Wild Thyme? Before Henry can find answers, his own nephew disappears into the hills. Then an old flame dies under suspicious circumstances, leaving Henry as the prime suspect. Torn between protecting his family and clearing his name, Henry fights to protect the most he’s ever had to lose.The Bramble and the Rose is the third book in the Henry Farrell series. Tom Bouman's Officer Farrell is first introduced in Dry Bones in the Valley, winner of the Edgar Award for Best First Novel and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Mystery/Thriller.
Piece of Mind: A Novel
by Michelle AdelmanTold with warmth and intelligence, Piece of Mind introduces one of the most endearing and heroic characters in contemporary fiction.At twenty-seven, Lucy knows everything about coffee, comic books, and Gus (the polar bear at the Central Park Zoo), and she possesses a rare gift for drawing. But since she suffered a traumatic brain injury at the age of three, she has had trouble relating to most people. She’s also uncommonly messy, woefully disorganized, and incapable of holding down a regular job. When unexpected circumstances force her out of the comfortable and protective Jewish home where she was raised and into a cramped studio apartment in New York City with her college-age younger brother, she must adapt to an entirely different life—one with no safety net. Over the course of a challenging summer, Lucy is forced to discover that she has more strengths than she herself knew.
The Acid House (Jonathan Cape Originals Ser.)
by Irvine WelshIrvine Welsh's scintillating, disturbing, and altogether outrageous collection of stories—the basis for the 1998 cult movie directed by Paul McGuigan. He is called "the Scottish Celine of the 1990s" (Guardian) and "a mad, postmodern Roald Dahl" (Weekend Scotsman). Using a range of approaches from bitter realism to demented fantasy, Irvine Welsh is able to evoke the essential humanity, well hidden as it is, of his generally depraved, lazy, manipulative, and vicious characters. He specializes particularly in cosmic reversals—God turn a hapless footballer into a fly; an acid head and a newborn infant exchange consciousnesses with sardonically unexpected results—always displaying a corrosive wit and a telling accuracy of language and detail. Irvine Welsh is one hilariously dangerous writer who always creates a sensation.
Blandings Castle
by P. G. Wodehouse"I envy those who’ve never read [Wodehouse] before—the prospect of reams of unread Wodehouse stretching out in front of you is…something which is enticing to contemplate." —Tony BlairWelcome to Blandings Castle, home of the well-intentioned but often distracted Lord Emsworth—and there are quite a few distractions at this stately country house. Head gardener Angus McAllister has resigned before the Shrewsbury Agricultural Show, when Emsworth needs him most; Lady Constance, Emsworth’s officious sister, has caged her daughter in the castle to keep her away from the persistent Beefy Bingham; and the Blandings pigman, Wellbeloved, has been sent to prison for drunken and disorderly conduct just days before Emsworth’s adored sow can win first prize at the 87th Annual Shropshire Show. Through P.G. Wodehouse’s expert wit, we witness Lord Emsworth trying to solve these predicaments and others, with the unexpected help (and hindrance) of a lively array of characters.
The Complete Stories of J. G. Ballard
by J. G. BallardNamed a Best Book of the Year by the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, and the San Francisco Chronicle A collection of 98 enthralling and pulse-quickening stories, spanning five decades, venerates the remarkable imagination of J. G. Ballard.With a body of work unparalleled in twentieth-century literature, J. G. Ballard is recognized as one of the greatest and most prophetic writers in the world. With the much-hailed release of The Complete Stories of J. G. Ballard, readers now have a means to celebrate the unmatched range and mesmerizing cadences of a literary genius. Whether writing about musical orchids, human cannibalism, or the secret history of World War III, Ballard's Complete Stories evokes the hallucinations of Kafka and Borges in its ability to render modern paranoia and fantastical creations on the page.Includes the story "The Garden of Time," the inspiration for the 2024 Met Gala Dress code.
Some Go Home: A Novel
by Odie LindseyThis "thrilling" novel that follows three generations—fractured by murder, seeking redemption—in fictional Pitchlynn, Mississippi "has the grit, power, and soul of Janis Joplin and the hardscrabble depth of Johnny Cash." (Randall Kenan)An Iraq War veteran turned small-town homemaker, Colleen works hard to keep her deployment behind her—until pregnancy brings her buried trauma to the surface. She hides her mounting anxiety from her husband, Derby, who is in turn preoccupied with the retrial of his father, Hare Hobbs, for a decades-old, civil rights–era murder. Colleen and Derby’s community, including the descendants of the murder victim, still grapple with the fallout; corrections officer Doc and his wife, Jessica, have built their life in the shadow of this violent act.As a media frenzy builds, questions of Hare’s guilt—and of the townsfolks’ potential complicity in the crime—only magnify the ever-present tensions of class and race, tied always to the land and who can call it their own. At the center of these lingering questions is Wallis House, an antebellum estate that has recently passed to new hands. A brick-and-mortar representation of a town trying to erase its past, Wallis House is both the jewel of a gentrifying 2010s Pitchlynn, and the scene of the 1964 murder itself. When fresh violence erupts on the property grounds, the battle between old Pitchlynn and new, between memorial site and moving on, forces a reckoning and irreparable loss.Some Go Home twists together personal and collective history, binding north Mississippi to northside Chicago, in a richly textured, explosive depiction of both the American South and our larger cultural legacy.
The Highland Witch: A Novel
by Susan Fletcher"This engrossing historical novel is essential for lovers of Scottish history. With its strong female protagonist, Fletcher’s latest work casts a spell that will linger over readers long after they have finished the book." —Library Journal (starred review)In 1692, brilliant, captivating Corrag—accused witch, orphaned herbalist, and unforgettable heroine—is imprisoned for her supposed involvement in a massacre in the Scottish highlands. Suspected of witchcraft and murder and awaiting her death, she tells her story to Charles Leslie, an Irish propagandist who seeks information to condemn the Protestant King William, rumored to be involved in the massacre. Hers is a story of passion, courage, love, and the magic of the natural world. By telling it, she transforms both their lives.Originally published in hardcover under the title Corrag: A Novel.