Eight linked stories tracing the history of a painting by the 17th century Dutch artist, Vermeer. In one, he paints his daughter to pay off debts, a second story describes the loss of the ownership papers, a third takes place on the eve of its theft by the Nazis. By the author of What Love Sees.

One of the New York Times’s 100 Best Books of the 21st Century
Winner of the 2006 Orange Prize for Fiction, another bestselling masterwork from the celebrated author of Swing Time and White Teeth
"In this sharp, engaging satire, beauty's only skin-deep, but funny cuts to the bone." —Kirkus Reviews
Having hit bestseller lists from the New York Times to the San Francisco Chronicle,...

Six years have passed since Jake Sanders watched Natalie, the love of his life, marry another man. Six years of hiding a broken heart by throwing himself into his career as a college professor. Six years of keeping his promise to leave Natalie alone, and six years of tortured dreams of her life with her new husband, Todd. But six years haven't come close to extinguishing his feelings, and when Jake comes across Todd's obituary, he can't keep himself...

"It's 2017 at the University of Arkansas. Millie Cousins, a senior resident assistant, wants to graduate, get a job, and buy a house. So when Agatha Paul, a visiting professor and writer, offers Millie an easy yet unusual opportunity, she jumps at the chance. But Millie's starry-eyed hustle becomes jeopardized by odd new friends, vengeful dorm pranks, and illicit intrigue."-- Provided by publisher.

With only her exquisite collection of poisonous plants for company, Eustacia Rose, a Professor of Botanical Toxicology, when her precious garden is vandalized and someone close to her beautiful neighbor is murdered, finds herself implicated in the crime and decides to take matters into her own hands.

Professor Jeremy Logan is brought onto famed explorer Porter Stone's archaeological team to investigate a series of harrowing and inexplicable occurrences that are causing people on the expedition to fear a centuries-old curse behind Pharoah Narmer's elusive "double" crown of the two Egypts. As paranoia and fear run rampant, Logan must delve into the mysteries of ancient Egyptology and near death experience in order to understand what might be plaguing...

When Emory Emmerick, an obnoxious guest at Balaclava College's Annual Owl Count is murdered, Professor Peter Shandy investigates.

"Eileen Merriweather knows a thing or two about romance. As a professor of literature, she teaches prestigious courses on history's greatest romantics, but one week out of the year she abandons her dusty textbooks and makes a pilgrimage to the Hudson Valley with her best friend Pru to meet their Super Smutty Book Club in person, and celebrate the romance series that brought them together - Quixotic Falls. It's a week of wine and happily-ever-afters....

Russell Stone, a Chicago writing instructor, discovers in his Berber Algerian student,Thassadit Amzwar, a preternatural happiness that has earned her the nickname "Miss Generosity." Stone soon learns that Thassadit may possess a rare euphoric trait called hyperthymia, and that Thomas Kurton, the charismatic entrepreneur behind genetics lab,Truecyte, wants to use her alleles to deliberately "adjust" the genome to produce happier, longer-living people...

"After a lifetime of taking care of his impossible but irresistible sister and his cherished niece, Tom is finally ready to put himself first. An architect specializing in tiny houses, he finally has an opportunity to build his masterpiece--"his last shot at leaving a footprint on the dying planet." Assuming, that is, he can stick to his resolution to keep the demands of his needy family at bay. Naturally, that's when his phone rings. His niece, Cecily--the...