"From the Man Booker Prize-winner, a brilliant and moving novel about celebrity, sexual power, and a daughter's search to understand her mother's hidden truths. Katherine O'Dell is an Irish theater legend. As her daughter Norah retraces her mother's celebrated career and bohemian life, she delves into long-kept secrets, both her mother's and her own. Katherine began her career on Ireland's bus-and-truck circuit before making it to London's West End,...

First published in 1842, "Dead Souls" is the story of Chichikov, a young middle-class gentleman who comes to a small town in Russia with a dubious plan to improve his wealth and position in life. He begins by spending beyond his means on the premise that he can impress the local officials and gain standing and connections in the community. At the heart of his plan is the idea of acquiring "dead souls" or more explicitly serfs of landowners who have...

Wade Whitehouse is an improbable protagonist for a tragedy. A well-digger and policeman in a bleak New Hampshire town, he is a former high-school star gone to beer fat, a loner with a mean streak. Wade comes to loom in one's mind as a blue-collar American Everyman afflicted by the dark secret of the macho tradition.

"While she was writing columns for The Irish Times and her best-selling novels, Maeve Binchy also had in mind to write a book that revolved around one street with many characters coming and going. Every once in a while, she would write about one these people. She would then put it in a drawer. "For the future," she would say. The future is now. Just around the corner from St. Jarlath's Crescent (which readers will recognize from Minding Frankie) is...

Cabbages and Kings (1904) is a novel by American writer O. Henry. Inspired by his experiences as a fugitive in Honduras, the interconnected stories that make up Cabbages and Kings-the title refers to a line from Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass-address themes of revolution, imperialism, exploitation, and greed. The novel is significant not only for launching O. Henry's career as a successful professional writer, but for coining the term "banana...

Set in 1930s France, Margery Sharp's witty, warm-hearted novel tells the story of a free-spirited mother who is reunited with her very proper daughter after sixteen years, when her daughter asks her to inspect her fiancé Julia Packett has barely laid eyes on her daughter, Susan, since leaving her with her proper, well-heeled in-laws after her husband was killed in World War I. Now thirty-seven, her lack of prospects hasn't dimmed her spirit or appetite...

"A debut story collection about Cambodian-American life-immersive and comic, yet unsparing-that marks the arrival of an indisputable new talent in American fiction"-- Provided by publisher "A vibrant story collection about Cambodian-American life--immersive and comic, yet unsparing--that offers profound insight into the intimacy of queer and immigrant communities. Seamlessly transitioning between the absurd and the tenderhearted, balancing acerbic...

"Simon Watson, a young librarian on the verge of losing his job, lives alone on the Long Island Sound in his family home--a house, perched on the edge of a bluff, that is slowly crumbling toward the sea. His parents are long dead, his mother having drowned in the water his house overlooks. His younger sister, Enola, works for a traveling carnival reading tarot cards, and seldom calls. On a day in late June, Simon receives a mysterious package from...

Finalist for the National Book Award: This sweeping novel set in the aftermath of World War II reveals the story behind the creation of an American icon
 
Major General Melville A. Goodwin, the son of a druggist, served in two world wars, rising through the ranks to take command of an armored division. He was a hero long before he braved a hail of bullets to save a fellow American in postwar Berlin, but until that mad act of...