In the lush countryside of Wisconsin, Jean Krenshaw is the ideal 1960's dairy farm wife. She cooks, sews, raises children, and plans an annual July 4th party for friends and neighbors. But when her brother-in-law Tommy, who lives next door, marries leery newcomer Liz, Jean is forced to confront a ten-year-old family secret involving the unresolved death of a young woman. "VanBaale presents a vivid portrait of one woman's lifelong struggle to find peace with what she has rather than what she desires. Fiction doesn't get more real than this." -Publishers Weekly "This is the book I was waiting to read." -Laura Kasischke, The Life Before Her Eyes With stark and swift prose, The Good Divide explores one woman's tortured inner world, and the painful choices that have divided her life, both past and present, forever.
Debating the Good Society probes two questions lying at the heart of the ongoing culture war incontemporary America: Where does goodness come from, and how is goodsocial order to be achieved? Through the ingenious means of a fictional Internet conversation among two dozen or so Americans from various walks of life and every shade of the ideological spectrum, Debating the Good Society probes two questions lying at the heart of the ongoing culture war in contemporary America: Where does goodness come from, and how is good social order to be achieved? Traditionalists and conservatives, who tend to view human nature as inherently sinful, argue that good order must be imposed from above, by parental authority and ruling powers, by the forces of law and tradition, and, ultimately, by God. Counterculturalists and liberals, who tend to believe in the inherent goodness of human nature, claim that well-supported children will develop into well-ordered adults and that adults empowered to make their own choices will form a healthy, well-ordered society. These opposing visions underlie a host of current controversies, including philosophies of child-rearing and education, social and political policy, sexual morality, and the evolution-creation debate. By exposing the limitations of both points of view, Andrew Bard Schmookler shows how the culture war presents a challenge to all Americans. This challenge is to integrate the half-truths advanced by both sides into a higher wisdom, one that promises to take the American experiment—to see whether humans can enjoy both the blessings of liberty and the fruits of good order—to the next level of its evolution, toward which it has been straining for the better part of a century.
A New York Times Editor’s Choice As a young girl, Katya Geller learned from her mother that math was the answer to everything. Now, approaching forty, she finds this wisdom tested: she has lost the love of her life, she is in the middle of a divorce, and has just found out that her mother is dying. Nothing is adding up. With humor, intelligence, and unfailing honesty, Katya traces back her life’s journey: her childhood in Soviet Russia, her parents’ great love, the death of her father, her mother’s career as a renowned mathematician, and their immigration to the United States. She is, by turns, an adrift newlywed, an ESL teacher in an office occupied by witches and mediums, a restless wife, an accomplished writer, a flailing mother of two, a grieving daughter, and, all the while, a woman caught up in the most common misfortune of all—falling in love. Award-winning author Lara Vapnyar delivers an unabashedly frank and darkly comic tale of coming of age in middle age. Divide Me by Zerois almost unclassifiable—a stylistically original, genre-defying mix of classic Russian novel, American self-help book, Soviet math textbook, sly writing manual, and, at its center, a universal story with unforgettable lessons for us all.
When a murder suspect's body is found frozen in the ice of a remote mountain creek, the subsequent investigation poses unsettling questions about how a promising young woman from a loving family could engage in acts of killing and ecoterrorism. Reprint.
Felix is back in the real world after his extraordinary adventurein THE DIVIDE. But so too is Snakeweed, the villainous Japegrin,who's followed him home - and he needs the enchanted formula hiddenin Felix's notebook.Snakeweed's visit brings disaster. He turns Felix's parents to stoneand, worse, his wicked spell seems to be spreading like a sinistervirus.To find a countercharm, Felix must return to the magical place hediscovered last year. But when he gets there he finds it much changedand his unusual friends in a horrible fix.
“The High Divide is a vivid reminder of why we read, and why we want to."* In 1886, Gretta Pope wakes up one morning to discover that her husband is gone. Ulysses Pope has left his family behind on the far edge of Minnesota’s western prairie, with only a brief note and no explanation for why he left or where he’s heading. It doesn’t take long for Gretta’s young sons, Eli and Danny, to set off after him, leaving Gretta no choice but to search out the boys and their father and bring them all home. Enger’s breathtaking portrait of the vast plains landscape is matched by the rich expanse of the story’s emotional terrain, in which pivotal historical events coincide with the intimate story of a family’s sacrifice and devotion. “A deeply moving, gripping novel about one man’s quest for redemption and his family’s determination to learn the truth . . . Layered with meaning, this remarkable novel deserves to be read more than once. The High Divide proves Enger’s chops as a masterful storyteller.” —Ann Weisgarber, author of The Promise “Blends adventure, two boys coming of age and an exploration of trust in marriage . . . The story captures the splendor of the 19th-century West.” —St. Paul Pioneer Press “A compelling story of a house divided, of a man’s haunting pursuit of forgiveness, and a family’s search for the husband they thought they knew—but never really did.” —*True West Magazine “A captivating story . . . Once you start turning the pages, there’s no setting the book down.” —The Denver Post “Enger’s novel is told in beautifully exact, liquid language . . . Highly recommended.” —Library Journal, starred review
An enchanted island. An evil resurrected. A society determined to gain power. When a violent attack leaves their father in the hospital, Abigail and Benjamin Cole discover there's more to their family history than mental illness. But after fifteen-year-old Abi is abducted, she learns the attack wasn't random. Thrust into an exotic and beautiful world part of a multi-millennial feud, she must decide who to trust in a society built on secrets. Questioning everything she's ever known, she enlists the help of a boy connected to her in impossible ways and uncovers a dangerous secret stretching generations. Seventeen-year-old Ben desperately searches for both his sister and his mother, but his hold on reality is fading. Something dark has latched onto him. In a race against his own failing mind, where violent hallucinations and paranoia force him to believe he's next in line for the family curse, he learns he's the only one that can save his family. When darkness is coming, who do you trust? Magic. Deceit. War. Perfect for fans of Libba Bray, Cassandra Clare, and Leigh Bardugo.
Following the attacks of September 11th, New York Governor George Pataki witnessed a truly United States of America rise like the mythological phoenix. People came together regardless of their generational, ethnic, situational, or cultural background, and he stated, “On that terrible day, a nation became a neighborhood. All Americans became New Yorkers.” These words echo today with a hollow ring, and a bitter sting. The economic and emotional fallout post-9/11 was devastating. The political toll was even worse, bringing us to where we are today, a society as divided as it’s been in more than a hundred years, separated by political tribes that demand ideological purity coupled with blind loyalty. In looking at America and its divide, Pataki asks a bold question: Did the terrorists win? This is a question no sitting politician or pundit from either side of the political spectrum will dare address. Along with President George W. Bush and Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Pataki was one of only three people directly involved in, commanding, and making life or death decisions during 9/11. Few have the experience or depth to even begin to dive into this subject; as a result, Pataki’s answers might surprise you. In sharing his perspective of where we were and where we are today, he hopes to shed light on what he calls the great divide. It’s a divide not just between left and right or Republicans and Democrats, but between the American people and their government. This division has fostered anger and resentment toward Washington, and toward each other, in a cultural separation that is likened to that of the Civil War. Now, almost twenty years since the deadliest attack on American soil, Americans have reached another critical moment: will we unite again, or this time get lost in the divide? Drawing on Pataki’s memories, notes, crises, and critical events, The Great Divide gives an unprecedented, shocking, heart-pounding inside view into what happened before, during, and after 9/11. The Governor reflects on where our country is today and how we can rebuild a common future and perhaps return to a time when a nation became a neighborhood.
Winner of the 2019 Minnesota Book Award for Novel & Short Story Poignant portrayals of life on the edge in northern Minnesota border country, from the best-selling author of These Granite Islands and Vacationland Bitter winters are nothing new in Hatchet Inlet, hard up against the ridge of the Laurentian Divide, but the advent of spring can’t thaw the community’s collective grief, lingering since a senseless tragedy the previous fall. What is different this year is what’s missing: Rauri Paar, the last private landowner in the Reserve, whose annual emergence from his remote iced-in islands marks the beginning of spring and the promise of a kinder season. The town’s residents gather at the local diner and, amid talk of spring weather, the latest gossip, roadkill, and the daily special, take bets on when Rauri will appear—or imagine what happened to him during the long and brutal winter. Retired union miner and widower Alpo Lahti is about to wed the diner’s charming and lively waitress, Sissy Pavola, but, with Rauri still unaccounted for, celebration seems premature. Alpo’s son Pete struggles to find his straight and narrow, then struggles to stay on it, and even Sissy might be having second thoughts. Weaving in and out of each other’s reach, trying hard to do their best (all the while wondering what that might be), the residents of this remote town in all their sweetness and sorrow remind us once more of the inescapable lurches of the heart and unexpected turns of our human comedy.
Philip K. Dick Award Finalist A “ridiculously fun” series debut “with a well-thought-out space opera setting and lots of fancy reveals”—from a Hugo Award winner (Charlie Jane Anders, author of All the Birds in the Sky). A ragtag space crew discovers alien technology that could change the fate of humanity—or awaken an ancient evil that could destroy all life in the galaxy. The shady crew of the White Raven run freight and salvage at the fringes of our solar system. They discover the wreck of a centuries-old exploration vessel floating light years away from its intended destination and revive its sole occupant, who wakes with news of First Alien Contact. When the crew informs her that humanity has alien allies already, she reveals that these are very different extra-terrestrials—and the gifts they bestowed on her could kill all humanity, or take it out to the most distant stars.
