Literary Lives

Book editor Emily Bryant finds herself unexpectedly in the charming town of Cascata on California’s Lost Coast, holding the keys to her grandmother’s rambling Victorian mansion. While sorting through her grandmother’s things, Emily learns that she must edit old manuscripts to inherit the estate. It’s a strange request from a family member who was basically a stranger. Emily quickly realizes that there’s something different about these manuscripts. Any changes she makes come true.

Ritwik Ghosh, twenty-two and recently orphaned, finds the chance to start a new life when he arrives in England from Calcutta. But Oxford holds little of the salvation Ritwik is looking for. Instead, he moves to London, where he drops out of official existence into a shadowy hinterland of illegal immigrants. The story that Ritwik writes to stave off his loneliness begins to find ghostly echoes in his own life. And, as present and past of several lives collide, Ritwik's own goes into free fall.

The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, the first novel Nabokov wrote in English, is a tantalizing literary mystery in which a writer’s half brother searches to unravel the enigma of the life of the famous author of Albinos in Black, The Back of the Moon, and Doubtful Asphodel. A characteristically cunning play on identity and deception, the novel concludes “ I am Sebastian, or Sebastian is I, or perhaps we both are someone whom neither of us knows.”

In Dorothy Whipple's High Wages, a determined young woman makes her way in the world against the looming backdrop of World War I. High Wages is more than a tale of savvy entrepreneurship: Jane’s thoughts, feelings, adventures and disappointments in love and friendship are all laid bare. Jane...

NATIONAL BESTSELLER A winning, irreverent debut novel about a family wrestling with its future and its past “With wit and a rich understanding of human foibles, [Mira] Jacob unspools a story that will touch your heart.”—People ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Boston Globe, The...

Linda Wagner-Martin brings a wealth of new information to this detailed portrait of Hemingway and his world, concentrating particularly on his friendships with women and the history of his four marriages.

“Viscerally vivid…half Tarantino and half pitch-black northern realism.” —The Guardian, Named a Best Book of 2024 * “Unfolds with a pleasurable, slow-burn assurance.” —The New York Times Book Review A stunning and “spiky debut” (The Times, London) novel set in the rugged, rural...

In this spellbinding and provocative novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Age of Miracles, a young mother is struck by sudden and puzzling psychological symptoms that illuminate the mysterious dimensions of the human mind—and of love. A Belletrist Book Club Pick A year after...

A tribute to a great man, an important and interesting writer, an inspiring teacher, and a friend some will not likely find again. Roger Lancelyn Green and Walter Hooper wrote a memorable biography about their pal, C.S. Lewis. "...We have sought to tell his story as best we could, to lay before...

"A dark and riveting page-turner with an intelligent twist." —Nadine Matheson, author of The Jigsaw Man, on Someone Had to Do It ON ASHER LANE, SOME SECRETS ARE WORTH KILLING FOR… Simone’s mother was murdered when she was thirteen. When her father was convicted, everything changed...

A riveting, brilliantly written debut novel, The Death of Bees is a coming-of-age story in which two young sisters attempt to hold the world at bay after the mysterious death of their parents. Marnie and Nelly, left on their own in Glasgow's Hazlehurst housing estate, attempt to avoid suspicion until Marnie can become a legal guardian for her younger sister.

From the big woods of Wisconsin to the Indian country of the Great Plains, new adventures and landscapes filled the rich childhood of Laura Ingalls Wilder. On a frontier steeped in both danger and great possibility, Laura would grow up to witness firsthand the rapid transformation of the West as pioneers and covered wagons gave way to farms, towns, and railroads. A pioneer, teacher, farmer's wife, and storyteller, Laura Ingalls Wilder experienced one of the most exciting times in American history.

From the award-winning “master of the short story” (The New York Times Book Review)—nine shattering, hilarious tales of men on the outskirts of America, habituating the motels, hot dog stands, and dive bars time forgot, grappling with a world that is swiftly changing, and dreaming of a return to the wooded shores of their youth

When Nick’s wife Kerry falls ill and dies, he realises for the first time how fragile his happiness has always been, and how much he’s been taking his good life and wonderful family for granted. Now, he suddenly finds himself navigating parenthood alone, unsure how to deal with his own grief, let alone that of his teenage son, Olly.

First published in 1948, Nothing but the Night marked the auspicious beginning of John Williams' career as a novelist. In the person of Arthur Maxley, Williams investigates the terror and the waywardness of a man who has suffered an early traumatic experience. As a child, Maxley witnessed a scene of such violence and of such a nature that the evocation of Greek tragedy is inescapable. Now, years later, we move through a single significant day in the grown Arthur Maxley's life, the day when he is to meet his father, who has been absent for many years.

This program is read by the author. "Man in the Dark is an undoubted pleasure to read. Auster really does possess the wand of the enchanter." —Michael Dirda, The New York Review of Books From Paul Auster, a "literary original" (Wall Street Journal) comes a novel that forces us to confront the...

Esta obra es una profunda exploración del alma humana y sus conflictos eternos. A través de una narración conmovedora, Tólstoi nos lleva en un viaje por las pasiones, miedos y esperanzas que definen nuestra existencia. Enfrentando dilemas morales y espirituales, los personajes de esta obra buscan respuestas a la pregunta esencial: ¿Qué es lo que realmente da sentido y propósito a la vida?

Best-selling author Elizabeth Berg has published fiction and nonfiction in The New York Times Magazine, Ladies’ Home Journal, and New Woman. She has been nominated for a National Magazine Award for her graceful, witty writing. In The Pull of the Moon, she alternates letters and journal entries to trace a middle-aged woman’s impulsive, and solitary, drive across country.

E.M. Forster's Howards End is a vivid portrait of London's golden age, before World War I forever changed its values and culture. Forster brings the great city's upper classes to life, detailing their grandiose spending habits, popular fads, Monet and Debussy, the rise of feminism, and the beginnings of urbanization. More than a mere idealization of pre-war London, Howards End provides insightful commentary on the rapid societal changes that occurred at the onset of the 20th century. Masterfully blending the stories of three vastly different groups of people - the independently wealthy, educated Schlegels; the nouveau riche Wilcoxes; and the ambitious but struggling Leonard Bast - Forster weaves a wonderfully rich, unforgettably poignant novel.

Austen’s heroine Elizabeth Bennet deals with the issues of manners, upbringing, morality, education, and marriage in the society of the landed gentry of early 19th-century England. Austen at her wittiest.