Warm and hopeful, this is a touching and honest depiction of a family changing together-and staying together. "I wonder what people would think if they could take the front off our house like a doll's house and watch us. All in the same house, but everyone separate. No one talking, but everyone thinking the same thing. Will we ever be a normal family again?" Izzy's family is under the spotlight when her dad comes out as Danielle, a trans woman. Izzy is terrified her family will be torn apart. Will she lose her dad? Will her parents break up? And what will people at school say? Now all eyes are on Izzy. Can she face her fears, find her voice, and stand up for her family and what's right?
'She looked away from his face and took in the clear spring night, full of stars. Her last thoughts were of her mother. Would she finally care, when one day they found her body, and a policeman came knocking at her door?' Nothing bad ever happens in the small seaside town of Castle Bay - until the body of missing tourist Bethany Haliwell is found in the bush, buried in a shallow grave. News crews and journalists from all over the country descend as old secrets are dragged up and gossip is taken as gospel. Among them is Miller Hatcher, a reporter battling her own demons, who arrives intent on gaining a promotion by covering the grisly murder. Following an anonymous tip, Miller begins to unravel the mystery. When another woman goes missing, she finds herself getting closer to the truth. But at what cost?
Feeling scared and powerless when her father's anger escalates and her parents separate, twelve-year-old Anna spends the summer with her grandmother and decides to make a difference when she sees what seems to be a girl held against her will.
If he had been with me everything would have been different... I wasn't with Finn on that August night. But I should've been. It was raining, of course. And he and Sylvie were arguing as he drove down the slick road. No one ever says what they were arguing about. Other people think it's not important. They do not know there is another story. The story that lurks between the facts. What they do not know—the cause of the argument—is crucial. So let me tell you...
A New York Times Bestseller • A Read with Jenna Today Show Book Club Pick! Named a Best Book of the Year by The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, People, Entertainment Weekly, USA Today, TIME, The A.V. Club, Buzzfeed, and PopSugar “I can’t believe how good this book is.... It’s wholly original. It’s also perfect.... Wilson writes with such a light touch.... The brilliance of the novel [is] that it distracts you with these weirdo characters and mesmerizing and funny sentences and then hits you in a way you didn’t see coming. You’re laughing so hard you don’t even realize that you’ve suddenly caught fire.” —Taffy Brodesser-Akner, author of Fleishman is in Trouble, New York Times Book Review From the New York Times bestselling author of The Family Fang, a moving and uproarious novel about a woman who finds meaning in her life when she begins caring for two children with a remarkable ability. Lillian and Madison were unlikely roommates and yet inseparable friends at their elite boarding school. But then Lillian had to leave the school unexpectedly in the wake of a scandal and they’ve barely spoken since. Until now, when Lillian gets a letter from Madison pleading for her help. Madison’s twin stepkids are moving in with her family and she wants Lillian to be their caretaker. However, there’s a catch: the twins spontaneously combust when they get agitated, flames igniting from their skin in a startling but beautiful way. Lillian is convinced Madison is pulling her leg, but it’s the truth. Thinking of her dead-end life at home, the life that has consistently disappointed her, Lillian figures she has nothing to lose. Over the course of one humid, demanding summer, Lillian and the twins learn to trust each other—and stay cool—while also staying out of the way of Madison’s buttoned-up politician husband. Surprised by her own ingenuity yet unused to the intense feelings of protectiveness she feels for them, Lillian ultimately begins to accept that she needs these strange children as much as they need her—urgently and fiercely. Couldn’t this be the start of the amazing life she’d always hoped for? With white-hot wit and a big, tender heart, Kevin Wilson has written his best book yet—a most unusual story of parental love.
The brilliant and explosive new novel from the author of the award-winning The Museum of Modern Love. Why is a massive bridge being built to connect the sleepy island of Bruny with the mainland of Tasmania? And why have terrorists blown it up? When the Bruny bridge is bombed, UN troubleshooter Astrid Coleman agrees to return home to help her brother before an upcoming election. But this is no simple task. Her brother and sister are on either side of politics, the community is full of conspiracy theories, her mother is fading and her father is quoting Shakespeare. Only on Bruny does the world seem sane. Until Astrid discovers how far the government is willing to go. Bruny is a searing, subversive novel about family, love, loyalty and the new world order. It is a gripping thriller with a jaw-dropping twist, a love story, a cry from the heart and a fiercely entertaining and crucial work of imagination that asks the burning question: what would you do to protect the place you love? Praise for The Museum of Modern Love: 'A glorious novel, meditative and special in a way that defies easy articulation.' Hannah Kent, author of Burial Rites 'Audacious and beautiful.' Dominic Smith, author of The Last Painting of Sara de Vos 'I adored it, and it is my book of the year so far.' Amanda Rayner, Readings Reviews ' coruscates with captivating energy Incisive, beautiful, and precise.' Foreword Reviews, starred review 'Captivating a gem of a novel.' Library Journal, starred review 'Deeply involving profound emotionally rich and thought-provoking.' Booklist, starred review 'With rare subtlety and humanity, this novel relocates the difficult path to wonder in us all.' The Christina Stead Prize 2017 'Profound a tender meditation on art, love, grief, and life.' Bustle 'An unusual and lively work of fiction.' Newsday
“Art will wake you up. Art will break your heart. There will be glorious days. If you want eternity you must be fearless.” —Heather Rose, The Museum of Modern Love Our hero, Arky Levin, has reached a creative dead end. An unexpected separation from his wife was meant to leave him with the space he needs to work composing film scores, but it has provided none of the peace of mind he needs to create. Guilty and restless, almost by chance he stumbles upon an art exhibit that will change his life. Based on a real piece of performance art that took place in 2010, the installation that the fictional Arky Levin discovers is inexplicably powerful. Visitors to the Museum of Modern Art sit across a table from the performance artist Marina Abramović, for as short or long a period of time as they choose. Although some go in skeptical, almost all leave moved. And the participants are not the only ones to find themselves changed by this unusual experience: Arky finds himself returning daily to watch others with Abramović. As the performance unfolds over the course of 75 days, so too does Arky. As he bonds with other people drawn to the exhibit, he slowly starts to understand what might be missing in his life and what he must do. This is a book about art, but it is also about success and failure, illness and happiness. It’s about what it means to find connection in a modern world. And most of all, it is about love, with its limitations and its transcendence.
If a writer wanted to create a classic American character, he could hardly do better than to look to Jim Miller's extraordinary eighty-plus years for inspiration. Born in the midst of the Great Depression, Jim was an indifferent student who grew into a passionate and lifelong learner, inventor, and problem-solver. A high school dropout and blue-collar father of six before he was thirty, he never shied away from hard work. Whether heading south in his middle teens to work on a commercial fishing boat off the Florida Keys, strapping a .38 pistol to his waist when lobstering on the lawless waters of Long Island Sound, or founding companies that, over the years, have earned in excess of a billion dollars, Jim Miller always said yes to opportunity and made his own luck along the way.Here, in Jim's own words and those of his family, friends, and colleagues, is the story of a remarkable American life. Alternately funny, moving, and jaw-dropping in its twists and turns, Nothing Bad Ever Happens chronicles Jim's approach to life ("Nothing bad ever happens, only missed opportunities") and how it helped him manage every setback with optimism and grit. It's the story of the risks Jim and his family took through the years to make a better life for themselves--and the unbreakable bonds that held that family together through thick and often very, very thin. In scenes set all across the globe, from New York Harbor to the Gulf of Mexico, from the North Fork of Long Island to London, Japan, Panama, and beyond, a portrait emerges of a man whose creativity, optimism, and boundless capacity for hard work allowed him to seize opportunities where others saw only peril and the likelihood of loss. Over the years, Jim Miller has built several fortunes, raised a loving family with his wife of sixty years (the beautiful Barbara), and created enough stories to fill a fair-sized book.This is that book. This is the tale of a life well lived.
Nothing Bad Happens in Life, Nature's Way of Success presents nature as the ultimate teacher of how to overcome all obstacles. The natural world is relentless in its ability to overcome any barriers to its forward progress and by exploring it's ability to renew itself, you will discover how you are also driven by it's mechanisms of self-determination and rebirth. Life's secret is that it has been committed to your success since the beginning. This illuminating and timely book explores nature's diversities and commitment to growth to reveal its essential goodness. Based on the ancient wisdom of the I Ching and Tao te Ching, this book is a valuable tool for leadership training, or for those in search of a more grounded and natural approach to spirituality and wellness.
