The Mars Room

The Mars Room

Author: Rachel Kushner

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2018-05-01

Total Pages: 368

ISBN-13: 1476756600

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TIME’S #1 FICTION TITLE OF THE YEAR • NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2018 FINALIST for the MAN BOOKER PRIZE and the NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD LONGLISTED for the ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL An instant New York Times bestseller from two-time National Book Award finalist Rachel Kushner, The Mars Room earned tweets from Margaret Atwood—“gritty, empathic, finely rendered, no sugar toppings, and a lot of punches, none of them pulled”—and from Stephen King—“The Mars Room is the real deal, jarring, horrible, compassionate, funny.” It’s 2003 and Romy Hall, named after a German actress, is at the start of two consecutive life sentences at Stanville Women’s Correctional Facility, deep in California’s Central Valley. Outside is the world from which she has been severed: her young son, Jackson, and the San Francisco of her youth. Inside is a new reality: thousands of women hustling for the bare essentials needed to survive; the bluffing and pageantry and casual acts of violence by guards and prisoners alike; and the deadpan absurdities of institutional living, portrayed with great humor and precision. Stunning and unsentimental, The Mars Room is “wholly authentic…profound…luminous” (The Wall Street Journal), “one of those books that enrage you even as they break your heart” (The New York Times Book Review, cover review)—a spectacularly compelling, heart-stopping novel about a life gone off the rails in contemporary America. It is audacious and tragic, propulsive and yet beautifully refined and “affirms Rachel Kushner as one of our best novelists” (Entertainment Weekly).


Uncanny Collateral

Uncanny Collateral

Author: Brian McClellan

Publisher: Brian McClellan

Published: 2019-04-02

Total Pages: 155

ISBN-13:

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Alek Fitz is a reaper, a collection agent who works for the supernatural elements of the world, tracking down debtors and solving problems for clients as diverse as the Lords of Hell, vampires, Haitian loa, and goblins. He’s even worked for the Tooth Fairy on occasion. Based out of Cleveland, Ohio, Alek is the best in the game. As a literal slave to his job, he doesn’t have a choice. When Death comes looking for someone to track down a thief, Alek is flung into a mess of vengeful undead, supernatural bureaucracy, and a fledgling imp war. As the consequences of failure become dire, he has few leads, and the clock is ticking. Only with the help of his friend Maggie—an ancient djinn with a complex past—can he hope to recover the stolen property, save the world, and just maybe wring a favor out of the Great Constant himself. It’s a hell of a job, but somebody’s got to do it . . .


The Way I Heard It

The Way I Heard It

Author: Mike Rowe

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2021-10-19

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 1982131470

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Emmy-award winning gadfly Rowe presents a ridiculously entertaining, seriously fascinating collection of his favorite episodes from America's #1 short-form podcast, The Way I Heard It, along with a host of memories, ruminations, illustrations, and insights.


Hard Laughter

Hard Laughter

Author: Anne Lamott

Publisher: Viking

Published: 1980

Total Pages: 308

ISBN-13:

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Anne Lamott's poignant first novel, reissued in an attractive new edition. Writer (and sometime housecleaner) Jennifer is twenty-three when her beloved father, Wallace, is diagnosed with a brain tumor. This catastrophic discovery sets off Anne Lamott's unexpectedly sweet and funny first novel, which is made dramatic not so much by Wallace's illness as by the emotional wake it sweeps under Jen and her brothers, self-contained Ben and feckless, lovable Randy. With characteristic affection and accuracy, Lamott sketches this offbeat family and their nearest and dearest as they draw ever closer in the intimacy Jen prizes "among the other estimable things: good music, good hard laughter, good sex, good industry, and good books."


Very Short Stories

Very Short Stories

Author: Sean Hill

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2011-12-13

Total Pages: 120

ISBN-13: 1612430325

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Inspired by an experiment on Twitter, these 300 moving stories are no bigger than a sentence or two, on themes like love, death, and family. In this one-of-a-kind collection, author Sean Hill has crafted hundreds of engaging stories that conjure an entire novel in just a sentence or two. Sometimes sad, often humorous and always creative, these tales touch on a wide range of life experiences from romance and family to death and sex. Nana rocked in her old wooden rocking chair. “Timmy, you have always been my favorite,” she said. He looked at her. “Nana, I’m Bobby.” Read your diary, discovered your secret. I thought I loved you, but now I’m not sure. Don’t know what to do, you look so human. Clowning was Daryl’s profession, cooking was his passion. Stella thought he was perfect. She liked to laugh and never learned to cook. Alex bought Sharon a ring for Valentine’s Day, which she sold to buy the gun that stopped him from loving her. In 2009, Sean Hill combined his love of writing and technology by creating @VeryShortStory, a Twitter feed where he interacts with his readers and shares his 140-character stories. Praise for Very Short Stories “Some are touching, some ring true, but most are laugh-out-loud funny.” —Seattle Times “The book is a treasure-trove of fascinating exploration into the craft of language and storytelling.” —Summit Daily “Story telling is his bag, pure and simple.” —Austin American Statesman “The best of the stories might rival Hemingway's classic six word story in their descriptive brevity and their ability to tell a complete and affecting tale.” —Short and Sweet NYC “Witty, well-crafted and always thought-provoking.” —Salt Lake Tribune


The Night Garden

The Night Garden

Author: Lisa Van Allen

Publisher: Ballantine Books

Published: 2014-10-07

Total Pages: 353

ISBN-13: 0345537572

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For fans of Sarah Addison Allen, Aimee Bender, and Alice Hoffman, The Night Garden is a luminous novel of love, forgiveness, and the possibilities that arise when you open your heart. Nestled in the bucolic town of Green Valley in upstate New York, the Pennywort farm appears ordinary, yet at its center lies something remarkable: a wild maze of colorful gardens that reaches beyond the imagination. Local legend says that a visitor can gain answers to life’s most difficult problems simply by walking through its lush corridors. Yet the labyrinth has never helped Olivia Pennywort, the garden’s beautiful and enigmatic caretaker. She has spent her entire life on her family’s land, harboring a secret that forces her to keep everyone at arm’s length. But when her childhood best friend, Sam Van Winkle, returns to the valley, Olivia begins to question her safe, isolated world and wonders if she at last has the courage to let someone in. As she and Sam reconnect, Olivia faces a difficult question: Is the garden maze that she has nurtured all of her life a safe haven or a prison? Praise for Lisa Van Allen’s The Wishing Thread “Reader to reader, knitter to knitter: You’re going to love this book.”—Debbie Macomber “Whimsical . . . great for fans of Sarah Addison Allen and Alice Hoffman.”—Library Journal Look for special features inside. Join the Random House Reader’s Circle for author chats and more.


What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

Author: Haruki Murakami

Publisher: Vintage Canada

Published: 2009-08-11

Total Pages: 194

ISBN-13: 0307373088

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From the best-selling author of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and After Dark, a rich and revelatory memoir about writing and running, and the integral impact both have made on his life. In 1982, having sold his jazz bar to devote himself to writing, Haruki Murakami began running to keep fit. A year later, he’d completed a solo course from Athens to Marathon, and now, after dozens of such races, not to mention triathlons and a slew of critically acclaimed books, he reflects upon the influence the sport has had on his life and—even more important—on his writing. Equal parts training log, travelogue, and reminiscence, this revealing memoir covers his four-month preparation for the 2005 New York City Marathon and includes settings ranging from Tokyo’s Jingu Gaien gardens, where he once shared the course with an Olympian, to the Charles River in Boston among young women who outpace him. Through this marvellous lens of sport emerges a cornucopia of memories and insights: the eureka moment when he decided to become a writer, his greatest triumphs and disappointments, his passion for vintage LPs and the experience, after the age of fifty, of seeing his race times improve and then fall back. By turns funny and sobering, playful and philosophical, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running is both for fans of this masterful yet guardedly private writer and for the exploding population of athletes who find similar satisfaction in distance running.


The Book of Jakarta

The Book of Jakarta

Author: utiuts

Publisher: Comma Press

Published: 2020-12-10

Total Pages: 141

ISBN-13: 1912697505

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A young woman takes a driverless taxi through the streets of Jakarta, only to discover that the destination she is hurtling towards is now entirely submerged... A group of elderly women visit a famous amusement park for one last ride, but things don’t go quite according to plan... The day before her wedding, a bride risks everything to meet her former lover at their favourite seafood restaurant on the other side of the tracks... Despite being the world’s fourth largest nation – made up of over 17,000 islands – very little of Indonesian history and contemporary politics are known to outsiders. From feudal states and sultanates to a Cold War killing field and a now struggling, flawed democracy – the country’s political history, as well as its literature, defies easy explanation. Like Indonesia itself, the capital city Jakarta is a multiplicity; irreducible, unpredictable and full of surprises. Traversing the different neighbourhoods and districts, the stories gathered here attempt to capture the essence of contemporary Jakarta and its writing, as well as the ever-changing landscape of the fastest-sinking city in the world. Translated by Mikael Johani, Zoe McLaughlin, Shaffira Gayatri, Khairani Barokka, Daniel Owen, Paul Agusta, Eliza Vitri Handayani, Syarafina Vidyadhana, Rara Rizal and Annie Tucker.


Distraction

Distraction

Author: Natalie M. Phillips

Publisher: JHU Press

Published: 2016-09-13

Total Pages: 303

ISBN-13: 1421420120

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Literary Attention: An fMRI Study of Reading Jane Austen


The Wrong Book

The Wrong Book

Author: Nick Bland

Publisher:

Published: 2014-01-01

Total Pages: 29

ISBN-13: 9781743621769

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Nicholas Ickle is in the wrong book. He is trying to introduce a book but before he can begin the pages are invaded by other characters. He is interrupted one after the other by an elephant, two monsters, a pirate, a queen and two servants, a horde of curious rats and a puppet. Nick Blands humorous illustrations show Nicholas losing his temper and sending the characters away. Just as he tries to introduce the real subject of the bookhimselfthe End descends.