B>From two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author Colson Whitehead, a gloriously entertaining novel of heists, shakedowns, and rip-offs set in Harlem in the 1960s./b>br>br>"Ray Carney was only slightly bent when it came to being crooked..."br>br>To his customers and neighbors on 125th street, Carney is an upstanding salesman of reasonably priced furniture, making a life for himself and his family. He and his wife Elizabeth are expecting their second child, and if her parents on Striver''s Row don''t approve of him or their cramped apartment across from the subway tracks, it''s still home.br>br>Few people know he descends from a line of uptown hoods and crooks, and that his façade of normalcy has more than a few cracks in it. Cracks that are getting bigger and bigger all the time.br>br>See, cash is tight, especially with all those installment-plan sofas, so if his cousin Freddie occasionally drops off the odd ring or necklace at the furniture store, Ray doesn''t see the need to ask where it comes from. He knows a discreet jeweler downtown who also doesn''t ask questions. br>br>Then Freddie falls in with a crew who plan to rob the Hotel Theresa -- the "Waldorf of Harlem" -- and volunteers Ray''s services as the fence. The heist doesn''t go as planned; they rarely do, after all. Now Ray has to cater to a new clientele, one made up of shady cops on the take, vicious minions of the local crime lord, and numerous other Harlem lowlifes.br>br>Thus begins the internal tussle between Ray the striver and Ray the crook. As Ray navigates this double life, he starts to see the truth about who actually pulls the strings in Harlem. Can Ray avoid getting killed, save his cousin, and grab his share of the big score, all while maintaining his reputation as the go-to source for all your quality home furniture needs?br>br>Harlem Shuffle is driven by an ingeniously intricate plot that plays out in a beautifully recreated Harlem of the early 1960s. It''s a family saga masquerading as a crime novel, a hilarious morality play, a social novel about race and power, and ultimately a love letter to Harlem.br>br>But mostly, it''s a joy to read, another dazzling novel from the Pulitzer Prize- and National Book Award-winning Colson Whitehead.
B>A stunning, lyrical novel set in the rolling foothills of the Appalachians about a young girl and the family truths that will haunt her for the rest of her life./b>br>br>"A girl comes of age against the knife."br>br>So begins the story of Betty Carpenter. Born in a bathtub in 1954 to a white mother and a Cherokee father, Betty is the sixth of eight siblings. The world they inhabit in the rural town of Breathed, Ohio, is one of poverty and violence--both from outside the family and, devastatingly, from within. The lush landscape, rich with birdsong, wild fruit, and blazing stars, becomes a kind of refuge for Betty, but when her family''s darkest secrets are brought to light, she has no choice but to reckon with the brutal history hiding in the hills, as well as the heart-wrenching cruelties and incredible characters she encounters.br>br>Despite the hardships she faces, Betty is resilient. Her curiosity about the natural world, her fierce love for her sisters, and her father''s brilliant stories are kindling for the fire of her own imagination, and in the face of all to which she bears witness, Betty discovers an escape: she begins to write. She recounts the horrors of her family''s past and present with pen and paper and buries them deep in the dirt--moments that have stung her so deeply she could not share them, until now.br>br>Inspired by generations of her family, Tiffany McDaniel sets out to free the past by delivering this heartbreaking yet magical story--a remarkable novel that establishes her as one of the most important voices in American fiction.
HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics. Winston Smith rewrites history. It''s his job. Hidden away in the Record Department of the sprawling Ministry of Truth, he helps the Party, and the omnipresent Big Brother, control the people of Oceania. Winston knows what a good citizen of Oceania must do: show his devotion for Big Brother and the Party; abstain from all vices; and, most importantly, possess no critical thoughts of their own. The new notebook he''s begun to write in is definitely against the rules - in fact, the Thought Police could arrest him simply for having it. Yet, as Winston begins to write his own history, a seed of rebellion begins to grow in his heart - one that could have devastating consequences. In George Orwell''s final and most well-known novel, he explores a dystopian future in which a totalitarian government controls the actions, thoughts and even emotions of its citizens, exercising power through control of language and history. Its lasting popularity is testament to Orwell''s powerful prose, and is a passionate political warning for today.
At 14, Turtle Alveston knows the use of every gun on her wall. She knows how to snare a rabbit, sharpen a blade and splint a bone. She knows that her daddy loves her more than anything else in this world and he'll do whatever it takes to keep her with him.
But she doesn't know why she feels so different from the other girls at school; why the line between love and pain can be so hard to see. Or why making a friend may be the bravest and most terrifying thing she has ever done.
Sometimes the people you're supposed to trust are the ones who do most harm. And what you've been taught to fear is the very thing that will save you This book has challenged me like no other. It's a masterpiece. A work of art on a page. I guarantee this book will take your breath away' Joanna Cannon, author of The Trouble with Goats and Sheep Brutal yet beautiful, My Absolute Darling has floored me. Dear Turtle, a heroine amidst the horror. Exceptional, unflinching storytelling' Ali Land , author of Good Me Bad Me An incandescent novel with an extraordinary, unforgettable heroine, both deeply contemplative and utterly thrilling' Observer Thriller of the month There are echoes of Ma's bravery in Emma Donoghue's Room, or the resilience of Cormac McCarthy's protagonists as they struggle to stay alive. Tallent's world is shocking in the truest sense of the word' Irish Times An utterly fantastic read. Every page is brimming with energy. And Turtle Alveston is as enthralling a character as I've encountered in a good long while' Kevin Powers, author of The Yellow Birds
From the award-winning author of 'Half of a Yellow Sun,' a powerful story of love, race and identity.
Lauren Groff is a two-time National Book Award finalist and the New York Times bestselling author of three novels, The Monsters of Templeton , Arcadia and Fates and Furies , and two short story collections, Delicate Edible Birds and Florida. She has won The Story Prize and been a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her work regularly appears in the New Yorker , the Atlantic and elsewhere, and she was named one of Granta ''s 2017 Best Young American Novelists.>
THE NUMBER ONE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER WINNER OF THE COSTA NOVEL AWARD 2018 WINNER OF THE AN POST IRISH BOOK AWARDS NOVEL OF THE YEAR WINNER OF THE SPECSAVERS NATIONAL BOOK AWARDS INTERNATIONAL AUTHOR OF THE YEAR SHORTLISTED FOR THE IRISH NOVEL OF THE YEAR AWARD 2019 LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2018 LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2019 LONGLISTED FOR THE RATHBONES FOLIO PRIZE 2019 Connell and Marianne grow up in the same small town in the west of Ireland, but the similarities end there. In school, Connell is popular and well-liked, while Marianne is a loner. But when the two strike up a conversation - awkward but electrifying - something life-changing begins. Normal People is a story of mutual fascination, friendship and love. It takes us from that first conversation to the years beyond, in the company of two people who try to stay apart but find they can't.
Terrible, unspeakable things happened to Sethe at Sweet Home, the farm where she lived as a slave for many years until she escaped to Ohio. Her new life is full of hope but eighteen years later she is still not free. Sethe's new home is haunted by the ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved.
The French Riviera: home to the Beautiful People. And none are more beautiful than Cecile, a precocious seventeen-year-old, and her father Raymond, a vivacious libertine. Charming, decadent and irresponsible, the golden-skinned duo are dedicated to a life of free love, fast cars and hedonistic pleasures.
The captivating Sunday Times and New York Times number one bestseller by the Orange Prize-winning author of The Song of Achilles ; 'spellbinding . a thrilling tour de force of the imagination' ( Mail on Sunday ) 'Fabulous' Daily Telegraph 'Blisteringly modern' The Times 'Bold and sensuously written' Daily Mail 'An airy delight' Observer God. Mortal. Daughter. Monster. Saviour. Outcast. Lover. Destroyer. Creator. Mother. Witch.
Scorned, rejected and at last exiled from her father's house for her dark gifts, Circe arrives on the remote island of Aiaia with nothing but her wits and magic to help her. But there is danger for a solitary woman in the world, and Circe's independence and strange powers draw the wrath of men and gods alike. To protect what she holds dear, Circe must decide whether she belongs with the deities she is born from, or the mortals she has come to love.
Complicated and wounded, gifted and passionate, Madeline Miller's captivating Circe steps out of myth and into the present as a heroine for our time, and all times.
Humbert Humbert is a middle-aged, fastidious college professor. He also likes little girls. And none more so than Lolita, who he'll do anything to possess. Is he in love or insane? A silver-tongued poet or a pervert? A tortured soul or a monster?! Or is he all of these?
A beautiful, arresting story about race and the relationships that shape us through life by the legendary Toni Morrison, in a stand-alone, slim Chatto hardback for the first time. In this 1983 short story - the only short story Morrison ever wrote - we meet Twyla and Roberta, who have known each other since they were eight years old and spent four months together as roommates in St. Bonaventure shelter. Inseparable then, they lose touch as they grow older, only later to find each other again at a diner, a grocery store, and again at a protest. Seemingly at opposite ends of every problem, and at each other''s throats each time they meet, the two women still cannot deny the deep bond their shared experience has forged between them. Another work of genius by this masterful writer, Recitatif keeps Twyla''s and Roberta''s races ambiguous throughout the story. Morrison herself described Recitatif , a story which will keep readers thinking and discussing for years to come, as "an experiment in the removal of all racial codes from a narrative about two characters of different races for whom racial identity is crucial." We know that one is white and one is Black, but which is which? And who is right about the race of the woman the girls tormented at the orphanage? A remarkable look into what keeps us together and what keeps us apart, and how perceptions are made tangible by reality, Recitatif is a gift to readers in uncertain times.
Half German, half Russian, Hel was raised by a Japanese general and survived Hiroshima to become a mystic, a master of the senses, and the most deadly assassin in the world. Nicholai has left his past behind him to live a life of isolation in a remote mountain fortress, determined to attain a state of effortless perfection known as shibumi. Then Hannah Stern arrives at his door. Hannah needs protection from a sinister organization known as the Mother Company. But, as Hel knows all too well, they are not easy to escape. And now they're coming after him too. The battle lines are drawn: ruthless power and corruption on one side, and on the other...shibumi.
A GUARDIAN BEST FICTION BOOK OF 2021 AN INDEPENDENT BOOK OF THE YEAR Set in a historical moment of moral crisis, Crossroads is the stunning foundation of a sweeping investigation of human mythologies, as the Hildebrandt family navigate the political and social crosscurrents of the past fifty years A WHITE REVIEW BOOK OF THE YEAR A LIT HUB BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR ''His best novel yet ... A Middlemarch -like triumph'' Telegraph ''Crossroads is the spiritual successor to The Corrections . .. It is a testament to Franzen''s authorial habits of empathy, his curiosity about the lives of others, his efforts in a land of cliche to add twists to easy assumptions, that you are likely to find yourself caring about how things turn out for each of the Hildebrandts equally '' Observer It''s December 23, 1971, and heavy weather is forecast for Chicago. Russ Hildebrandt, the associate pastor of a liberal suburban church, is on the brink of breaking free of a marriage he finds joyless - unless his wife, Marion, who has her own secret life, beats him to it. Their eldest child, Clem, is coming home from college on fire with moral absolutism, having taken an action that will shatter his father. Clem''s sister, Becky, long the social queen of her high-school class, has sharply veered into the counterculture, while their brilliant younger brother Perry, who''s been selling drugs to seventh-graders, has resolved to be a better person. Each of the Hildebrandts seeks a freedom that each of the others threatens to complicate.
Jonathan Franzen''s novels are celebrated for their unforgettably vivid characters and their keen-eyed take on the complexities of contemporary America. Now, for the first time, in Crossroads , Franzen explores the history of a generation. With characteristic humour and complexity, and with even greater warmth, he conjures a world that feels no less immediate.
A tour de force of interwoven perspectives and sustained suspense, Crossroads is the story of a Midwestern family at a historical moment of moral crisis. Jonathan Franzen''s gift for melding the small picture and the big picture has never been more dazzlingly evident.
Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2020 Longlisted for the (US) National Book Award for Fiction 2020 ''We were bowled over by this first novel, which creates an amazingly intimate, compassionate, gripping portrait of addiction, courage and love.'' The judges of the Booker Prize ''Douglas Stuart has written a first novel of rare and lasting beauty.'' Observer It is 1981. Glasgow is dying and good families must grift to survive. Agnes Bain has always expected more from life. She dreams of greater things: a house with its own front door and a life bought and paid for outright (like her perfect, but false, teeth). But Agnes is abandoned by her philandering husband, and soon she and her three children find themselves trapped in a decimated mining town. As she descends deeper into drink, the children try their best to save her, yet one by one they must abandon her to save themselves. It is her son Shuggie who holds out hope the longest. Shuggie is different. Fastidious and fussy, he shares his mother''s sense of snobbish propriety. The miners'' children pick on him and adults condemn him as no'' right . But Shuggie believes that if he tries his hardest, he can be normal like the other boys and help his mother escape this hopeless place. Douglas Stuart''s Shuggie Bain lays bare the ruthlessness of poverty, the limits of love, and the hollowness of pride. A counterpart to the privileged Thatcher-era London of Alan Hollinghurst''s The Line of Beauty , it also recalls the work of edouard Louis, Frank McCourt, and Hanya Yanagihara, a blistering debut by a brilliant writer with a powerful and important story to tell.
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The legendary American artist offers a never-before-seen glimpse of her remarkable relationship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe in the epochal days of New York City and the Chelsea Hotel in the late sixties and seventies. An honest and moving story of youth and friendship, Smith brings the same unique, lyrical quality to Just Kids as she has to the rest of her formidable body of work--from her influential 1975 album Horses to her visual art and poetry. Patti Smith would evolve as a poet and performer, and Robert Mapplethorpe would direct his highly provocative style toward photography. Bound in innocence and enthusiasm, they traversed the city from Coney Island to 42nd Street, and eventually to the celebrated round table of Max's Kansas City, where the Andy Warhol contingent held court. In 1969, the pair set up camp at the Hotel Chelsea and soon entered a community of the famous and infamous--the influential artists of the day and the colorful fringe. It was a time of heightened awareness, when the worlds of poetry, rock and roll, art, and sexual politics were colliding and exploding. In this milieu, two kids made a pact to take care of each other. Scrappy, romantic, committed to create, and fueled by their mutual dreams and drives, they would prod and provide for one another during the hungry years. A true fable, Just Kids is a portrait of two young artists' ascent, a prelude to fame.
"Ms. Haigh is an expertly nuanced storyteller long overdue for major attention. Her work is gripping, real, and totally immersive, akin to that of writers as different as Richard Price, Richard Ford, and Richard Russo."--Janet Maslin, New York Times The highly anticipated new novel by acclaimed New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Haigh--"a gifted chronicler of the human condition" ( Washington Post Book World )--is a tense, riveting story about the disparate lives that intersect at a woman''s clinic For almost a decade, Claudia has counseled patients at Mercy Street, a clinic in the heart of the city. The work is consuming, the unending dramas of women in crisis. For its patients, Mercy Street offers more than health care; for many, it is a second chance. But outside the clinic, the reality is different. Anonymous threats are frequent. A small, determined group of anti-abortion demonstrators appears each morning at its door. As the protests intensify, fear creeps into Claudia''s days, a humming anxiety she manages with frequent visits to Timmy, an affable pot dealer in the midst of his own existential crisis. At Timmy''s, she encounters a random assortment of customers, including Anthony, a lost soul who spends most of his life online, chatting with the mysterious Excelsior11--the screenname of Victor Prine, an anti-abortion crusader who has set his sights on Mercy Street and is ready to risk it all to protect the unborn. Mercy Street is a novel for right now, a story of the polarized American present. Jennifer Haigh, "an expert natural storyteller with a keen sense of her characters'' humanity" ( New York Times ), has written a groundbreaking novel, a fearless examination of one of the most divisive issues of our time.
It begins with a letter from a woman Frank has never met. A pleading letter. A letter that closed his throat. 'Come fast. She be dead if you tarry.' And that is it all it takes.
One of the most famous novels of the 20th century, available in a beautiful new hardback VMC set of Daphne du Maurier classics.
Moby Dick, la terrible baleine blanche ! Depuis qu'elle l'a privé d'une jambe, le capitaine Achab s'est juré de se venger. Ignorant tous les présages funestes, il entraîne pendant de longs mois l'équipage du Pequod dans une folle poursuite à travers les océans.
SOON TO BE A MAJOR NETFLIX FILM, STARRING ANA DE ARMAS, ADRIEN BRODY, BOBBY CANNAVALE AND JULIANNE NICHOLSON, DIRECTED BY ANDREW DOMINIK ''A torrentially imaginative, compulsively readable tour de force'' Sunday Telegraph ''A fabulous reinvention of the life of a fabulous reinvention, and a cracking page-turner to boot'' Evening Standard Blonde is a mesmerising novel about the most enduring and evocative cultural icon of the 20th century: the woman who became Marilyn Monroe. A fragile and gifted young woman, Norma Jeane Baker makes and remakes her identity: she is the orphan whose mother is declared mad; the woman who changes her name to be an actress; the fated celebrity, lover and muse. Told in her voice, Blonde shows a culture hypnotised by its own myths, and the devastating effects it had on Hollywood''s greatest star.
''This masterpiece about Marilyn Monroe''s life is audacious, gripping and clever'' Rose Tremain ''If you haven''t read Joyce Carol Oates before, start here, and now'' Independent