A husband sits in Harry’s Bar in Venice, thinking of his wife–lost to him now–whose plea has brought him back to one of their favourite haunts. At another table, a young couple quarrel. “Cheating at Canasta” is the title story of William Trevor’s new collection, his first since the highly acclaimed A Bit on the Side, and its themes of missed opportunities, the inevitability of change and the powerful but fragmentary quality of our memories are entirely characteristic of his unparalleled oeuvre.
It?s summer and nothing much is happening in Rathmoye. So it doesn?t go unnoticed when a dark-haired stranger appears on his bicycle and begins photographing the mourners at Mrs. Connulty?s funeral. Florian Kilderry couldn?t know that the Connultys are said to own half the town: he has only come to Rathmoye to photograph the scorched remains of its burnt- out cinema. A few miles out in the country, Dillahan, a farmer and a decent man, has married again: Ellie is the young convent girl who came to work for him when he was widowed. Ellie leads a quiet, routine life, often alone while Dillahan runs the farm. Florian is planning to leave Ireland and start over. Ellie is settled in her new role as Dillahan?s wife. But Florian?s visit to Rathmoye introduces him to Ellie, and a dangerously reckless attachment begins. In a characteristically masterly way Trevor evokes the passions and frustrations felt by Ellie and Florian, and by the people of a small Irish town during one long summer.
Card games offer loads of fun and one of the best socializing experiences out there. But picking up winning card strategies is a bit of a challenge, and though your buddies may think that picking up the rules of the game is easy, winning is a totally different story. With Card Games For Dummies, Second Edition, you’ll not only be able to play the hottest card games around, you can also apply game-winning strategies and tips to have fun and beat your opponents. Now updated, this hands-on guide shows you everything you need to know—the basics, the tricks, and the techniques—to become a master card player, with expanded coverage on poker as well as online gaming and tournaments. Soon you will have the card-playing power to: Pin down your opponents in Texas Hold’em Show off your power in Stud Poker Hit wisely in Blackjack Break hearts ruthlessly in Hearts Mix up the night with Gin and Rummy Build yourself a victory in Bridge Send them fishing in Go Fish This straightforward, no-nonsense guide features great ways to improve your game and have more fun, as well as a list of places to find out more about your favorite game. It also profiles different variations of each game, making you a player for all seasons!
*A Sunday Times Top 10 Bestseller* 'What a writer he was; he could flip over a sentence so gently, and showthe underbelly in a heartbeat. His work is always quietly compassionate' Elizabeth Strout In this final collection of ten exquisite, perceptive and profound stories, William Trevor probes into the depths of the human spirit. Here we encounter a tutor and his pupil, whose lives are thrown into turmoil when they meet again years later; a young girl who discovers the mother she believed dead is alive and well; and a piano-teacher who accepts her pupil's theft in exchange for his beautiful music. These gorgeous stories - the last that Trevor wrote before his death - affirm his place as one of the world's greatest storytellers. 'Trevor is a master of both language and storytelling' Hilary Mantel 'He is one of the great short-story writers, at his best the equal of Chekhov' John Banville 'The greatest living writer of short stories in the English language' New Yorker
Penguin Classics is proud to welcome William Trevor—"Ireland’s answer to Chekhov" (The Boston Globe) and "one of the best writers of our era" (The Washington Post)—to our distinguished list of literary masters. In this award-winning novel, an informer’s body is found on the estate of a wealthy Irish family shortly after the First World War, and an appalling cycle of revenge is set in motion. Led by a zealous sergeant, the Black and Tans set fire to the family home, and only young Willie and his mother escape alive. Fatherless, Willie grows into manhood while his alcoholic mother’s bitter resentment festers. And though he finds love, Willie is unable to leave the terrible injuries of the past behind. First time in Penguin Classics Winner of the Whitbread Novel of the Year Award
A marvelous collection from "the greatest living writer of short stories in the English language" (The New Yorker). Four-time winner of the O. Henry Prize, three-time winner of the Whitbread Prize, and five-time finalist for the Man Booker Prize, William Trevor is one of the most acclaimed authors of our time. Over a career spanning more than half a century, Trevor has crafted exquisitely rendered tales that brilliantly illuminate the human condition. Bringing together forty-eight stories from After Rain, The Hill Bachelors, A Bit on the Side, and Cheating at Canasta, this second volume of Trevor's collected fiction offers readers "treasures of gorgeous writing, brilliant dialogue, and unforgettable lives" (The New York Times Book Review).
“Dear Readers and Booksellers: If you have not yet experienced the great pleasure of a story by William Trevor, I urge you to read this new novel, and to set it in pride of place in your stores. Because the haunting story of Lucy Gault will not fail to capture you with its mystery, its compassion, and the beauty of its writing.” -- Louise Dennys, Executive Publisher, Knopf Canada William Trevor is beloved around the world as one of the finest writers today -- and with just cause: his new novel is a masterpiece of love and loss, and lives suspended in time. Lucy Gault is nine when her parents are faced with the agonizing decision to flee Ireland to be safe from the violence that privilege and Lucy’s English mother have brought upon them -- or to stay in their home and risk losing it to the threat of arson. Lucy cannot bear the thought of leaving Lahardane’s beautiful pastureland, the seashore below pale clay cliffs, and the nameless dog that has become her companion. So she runs away into the nearby woods to convince her parents to stay. Instead, her actions begin the unravelling of her family when they find two bits of her clothing and conclude she has thrown herself into the sea. Now desperate to be rid of the place where their much-loved daughter has died, Captain and Heloise Gault set off to wander restlessly across Europe. In the Lahardane woods, two weeks after the Gaults have gone, the groundskeeper finds the child lying lame and half-dead. He and his wife become Lucy’s life companions as she keeps a 30-year vigil of love and guilt waiting for her parents’ return.
This National Book Critics Circle Award is “an entrancing attempt to catch what falls between: the irreducibly personal, messy, even embarrassing ways reading and living bleed into each other, which neither literary criticism nor autobiography ever quite acknowledges.” —The New York Times “Stories, both my own and those I’ve taken to heart, make up whoever it is that I’ve become,” Peter Orner writes in this collection of essays about reading, writing, and living. Orner reads and writes everywhere he finds himself: a hospital cafeteria, a coffee shop in Albania, or a crowded bus in Haiti. The result is a book of unlearned meditations that stumbles into memoir. Among the many writers Orner addresses are Isaac Babel and Zora Neale Hurston, both of whom told their truths and were silenced; Franz Kafka, who professed loneliness but craved connection; Robert Walser, who spent the last twenty-three years of his life in a Swiss insane asylum, working at being crazy; and Juan Rulfo, who practiced the difficult art of silence. Virginia Woolf, Eudora Welty, Yasunari Kawabata, Saul Bellow, Mavis Gallant, John Edgar Wideman, William Trevor, and Václav Havel make appearances, as well as the poet Herbert Morris--about whom almost nothing is known. An elegy for an eccentric late father, and the end of a marriage, Am I Alone Here? is also a celebration of the possibility of renewal. At once personal and panoramic, this book will inspire readers to return to the essential stories of their own lives.
William Trevor's Last Stories is forthcoming from Viking. In Reading Turgenev, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, an Irish country girl is trapped in a loveless marriage with an older man, but finds release through secret meetings with a man who shares her passion for Russian novels. My House in Umbra tells of Emily Delahunty, a writer of romantic novels, who helps survivors of a bomb attack on a train to convalesce, inventing colorful pasts for her patients. Two novels, two women who retreat further into the realm of the imagination until the boundaries between what is real and what is not become blurred.
In his insightful new book, Holy Shit: Managing Manure to Save Mankind, contrary farmer Gene Logsdon provides the inside story of manure-our greatest, yet most misunderstood, natural resource. He begins by lamenting a modern society that not only throws away both animal and human manure-worth billions of dollars in fertilizer value-but that spends a staggering amount of money to do so. This wastefulness makes even less sense as the supply of mined or chemically synthesized fertilizers dwindles and their cost skyrockets. In fact, he argues, if we do not learn how to turn our manures into fertilizer to keep food production in line with increasing population, our civilization, like so many that went before it, will inevitably decline. With his trademark humor, his years of experience writing about both farming and waste management, and his uncanny eye for the small but important details, Logsdon artfully describes how to manage farm manure, pet manure and human manure to make fertilizer and humus. He covers the field, so to speak, discussing topics like: How to select the right pitchfork for the job and use it correctly How to operate a small manure spreader How to build a barn manure pack with farm animal manure How to compost cat and dog waste How to recycle toilet water for irrigation purposes, and How to get rid ourselves of our irrational paranoia about feces and urine. Gene Logsdon does not mince words. This fresh, fascinating and entertaining look at an earthy, but absolutely crucial subject, is a small gem and is destined to become a classic of our agricultural literature.
