The provocative classic work newly updated An intimate personal odyssey across America's changing sexual landscape When first published, Gay Talese's 1981 groundbreaking work, Thy Neighbor's Wife, shocked a nation with its powerful, eye-opening revelations about the sexual activities and proclivities of the American public in the era before AIDS. A marvel of journalistic courage and craft, the book opened a window into a new world built on a new moral foundation, carrying the reader on a remarkable journey from the Playboy Mansion to the Supreme Court, to the backyards and bedrooms of suburbia—through the development of the porn industry, the rise of the "swinger" culture, the legal fight to define obscenity, and the daily sex lives of "ordinary" people. It is the book that forever changed the way Americans look at themselves and one another.
Love stories. Lesbian Fiction. Alex Foster's life is exactly as she wants it. She's quit her job as an English teacher and has decided to hole up in her newly acquired lake house for the summer to try her hand at writing a novel. She has close friends; she has her dog;she plays volleyball. She is content. Jennifer Wainwright is a young, wealthy suburbanite who's life is exactly as she expected it would be. She's married to her high school sweetheart who is about to inherit his father's law firm. She has friends. And she has the whole summer to work on decorating the new house on the lake she and her husband have just purchased as their summer home. She is content. A chance meeting over a runaway pooch is the start of a journey for each woman. Over the course of one unbelievable summer set on the beautiful shores of Canandaigua Lake in upstate New York, these two women will teach one another, learn from one another, question their own beliefs and expectations, and unwittingly fall in love.
The controversial chronicle of a motel owner who secretly studied the sex lives of his guests by the renowned journalist and author of Thy Neighbor’s Wife. On January 7, 1980, in the run-up to the publication of his landmark bestseller Thy Neighbor’s Wife, Gay Talese received an anonymous letter from a man in Colorado. “Since learning of your long-awaited study of coast-to-coast sex in America,” the letter began, “I feel I have important information that I could contribute to its contents or to contents of a future book.” The man—Gerald Foos—hen divulged an astonishing secret: he had bought a motel outside Denver for the express purpose of satisfying his voyeuristic desires. Underneath its peaked roof, he had built an “observation platform” through which he could peer down on his unwitting guests. Over the years, Foos sent Talese hundreds of pages of notes on his guests, work that Foos believed made him a pioneering researcher into American society and sexuality. Through his Voyeur’s motel, he witnessed and recorded the harsh effects of the war in Vietnam, the upheaval in gender roles, the decline of segregation, and much more. In The Voyeur’s Motel. “the reader observes Talese observing Foos observing his guests.” An extraordinary work of narrative journalism, it is at once an examination of one unsettling man and a portrait of the secret life of the American heartland over the latter half of the twentieth century (Daily Mail, UK). “This is a weird book about weird people doing weird things, and I wouldn’t have put it down if the house were on fire.” —John Greenya, Washington Times
The inner workings of a writer’s life, the interplay between experience and writing, are brilliantly recounted by a master of the art. Gay Talese now focuses on his own life—the zeal for the truth, the narrative edge, the sometimes startling precision, that won accolades for his journalism and best-sellerdom and acclaim for his revelatory books about The New York Times (The Kingdom and the Power), the Mafia (Honor Thy Father), the sex industry (Thy Neighbor’s Wife), and, focusing on his own family, the American immigrant experience (Unto the Sons). How has Talese found his subjects? What has stimulated, blocked, or inspired his writing? Here are his amateur beginnings on his college newspaper; his professional climb at The New York Times; his desire to write on a larger canvas, which led him to magazine writing at Esquire and then to books. We see his involvement with issues of race from his student days in the Deep South to a recent interracial wedding in Selma, Alabama, where he once covered the fierce struggle for civil rights. Here are his reflections on the changing American sexual mores he has written about over the last fifty years, and a striking look at the lives—and their meaning—of Lorena and John Bobbitt. He takes us behind the scenes of his legendary profile of Frank Sinatra, his writings about Joe DiMaggio and heavyweight champion Floyd Patterson, and his interview with the head of a Mafia family.But he is at his most poignant in talking about the ordinary men and women whose stories led to his most memorable work. In remarkable fashion, he traces the history of a single restaurant location in New York, creating an ethnic mosaic of one restaurateur after the other whose dreams were dashed while a successor’s were born. And as he delves into the life of a young female Chinese soccer player, we see his consuming interest in the world in its latest manifestation.In these and other recollections and stories, Talese gives us a fascinating picture of both the serendipity and meticulousness involved in getting a story. He makes clear that every one of us represents a good one, if a writer has the curiosity to know it, the diligence to pursue it, and the desire to get it right.Candid, humorous, deeply impassioned—a dazzling book about the nature of writing in one man’s life, and of writing itself.
A powerful true story about a Muslim doctor's service to small-town America and the hope of overcoming our country's climate of hostility and fear. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY PUBLISHERS WEEKLY In 2013, Ayaz Virji left a comfortable job at an East Coast hospital and moved to a town of 1,400 in Minnesota, feeling called to address the shortage of doctors in rural America. But in 2016, this decision was tested when the reliably blue, working-class county swung for Donald Trump. Virji watched in horror as his children faced anti-Muslim remarks at school and some of his most loyal patients began questioning whether he belonged in the community. Virji wanted out. But in 2017, just as he was lining up a job in Dubai, a local pastor invited him to speak at her church and address misconceptions about what Muslims practice and believe. That invitation has grown into a well-attended lecture series that has changed hearts and minds across the state, while giving Virji a new vocation that he never would have expected. In Love Thy Neighbor, Virji relates this story in a gripping, unforgettable narrative that shows the human consequences of our toxic politics, the power of faith and personal conviction, and the potential for a renewal of understanding in America's heartland.
Based on a popular New York Times Op-Ed piece, this is the quirky, heartfelt account of one man's quest to meet his neighbors--and find a sense of community. **As seen in Parade, USA Today, The Washington Post, The Chicago Sun-Times, and more. **Winner of the Zocalo Square Book Prize, and recently named a first selection by Action Book Club. "It's impossible to read this book without feeling the urge to knock on neighbors' doors." -Chicago Sun-Times Journalist and author Peter Lovenheim lived on the same street in suburban Rochester, NY, most of his life. But it was only after a brutal murder-suicide rocked the community that he was struck by a fact of modern life in this comfortable enclave: No one knew anyone else. Thus begins Peter's search to meet and get to know his neighbors. An inquisitive person, he does more than just introduce himself. He asks, ever so politely, if he can sleep over. In this smart, engaging, and deeply felt book, Lovenheim takes readers inside the homes, minds, and hearts of his neighbors and asks a thought-provoking question: Do neighborhoods matter--and is something lost when we live among strangers?
A thrilling new book from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of No Way Out, that fans of Nora Roberts and Rachel Caine won’t want to miss! One woman’s picture-perfect island sanctuary reveals itself to be filled with dangers in this exciting page-turner… At twenty-nine, Alison Marshall is ready to find a place to call home. She’s drifted from one small Florida town to another since high school, working odd jobs, saving hard, and building a nest egg. Once she finds the right place to settle down, she’ll know. And when she reaches beautiful Palmetto Island, she thinks she may have found it. The small, close-knit island community seems to have everything Alison needs. On a hunch, she contacts the island’s only realtor, and learns that an old beach house is on the market. At first, home is everything she hoped it would be. But as days turn into weeks, she uncovers a dark side to this supposedly peaceful haven. The locals have a secret, and once Alison discovers what it is, she faces a stark choice. She can stay and join them—or escape. But leaving brings its own risks, and Alison is starting to wonder if coming to Palmetto Island is the last mistake she’ll ever make . . . Praise for Fern Michaels “Michaels’s highly developed skills as a storyteller are evident in the affable characters [and] suspenseful plot.” —Publishers Weekly on Deep Harbor
Francis Shaeffer had been serving as a pastor for over a decade when he began to wonder if Christianity really made a difference in people’s lives. True Spirituality, a twentieth-century spiritual classic, outlines the result of his effort to “start at the beginning” and re-examine his faith. The book is a treasure trove of wisdom for Christians trying to discover what true spirituality looks like in everyday life. Includes a foreword by Chuck Colson and an introduction by Dr. Jerram Barrs, director of the Schaeffer Institute.
