Literary Lives

Alors que le pouls de New York bat au rythme des années 1960 et de la contre-culture, une jeune fille, Ruth, s'y installe pour y suivre ses études en rêvant de devenir journaliste. Elle y découvre l'amitié, le rock, l'amour... tout en se questionnant sur son identité. Pas évident d'avoir laissé derrière elle sa famille et sa terre natale, la République dominicaine... Septembre 1961. Depuis le pont du bateau sur lequel elle a embarqué, Ruth tourne le dos à son île natale, la République dominicaine. En ligne de mire : New York, l'université, un stage au Times.

Althea Bell is still heartbroken by her mother’s tragic, premature death - and tormented by the last, frantic words she whispered into young Althea’s ear: Wait for her. For the honeysuckle girl. She’ll find you, I think, but if she doesn’t, you find her. Adrift ever since, Althea is now fresh out of rehab and returning to her family home in Mobile, Alabama, determined to reconnect with her estranged, ailing father.

When John Rechy's explosive first novel appeared in 1963, it marked a radical departure in fiction, and gave voice to a subculture that had never before been revealed with such acuity. It earned comparisons to Genet and Kerouac, even as Rechy was personally attacked by scandalized reviewers.

Seventy-one and a man used to controlling those around him, Saul finds himself slipping into what he describes as his slow dance with death. His ramblings, humor, emotions, lucid moments, and confusion are laid bare as well as the thoughts and feelings of his loved ones: his wife, Monique, conflicted and depressed, caring yet angry; his daughter, Florence, compassionate yet proper and reserved; his son, Joey, self-centered and narcissistic, seemingly indifferent to his family's challenges.

No longer tolerating her husband’s borderline abuse, Faith escapes to her parents’ California beach house to plan her next move. She never dreamed her new chapter would involve befriending Sarah, a fourteen-year-old on the run from her father and reeling from her mother’s sudden and suspicious death. While Sarah’s grandmother scrambles to get custody, Faith is charged with spiriting the girl away on a journey that will restore her hope: Sarah implores Faith to take her to Falkner’s Midnight Sun, the prized black mare that her father sold out from under her.

“Why did Lorrie Ann look graceful in beat-up Keds and shorts a bit too small for her? Why was it charming when she snorted from laughing too hard? Yes, we were jealous of her, and yet we did not hate her. She was never so much as teased by us, we roaming and bratty girls of Corona del Mar...

Nine years old, Andy embarks on the trip by bus, alone for the first time. He decides it will be a rite of passage and his first step into manhood. Sometimes a handful at home, Andy was a good boy when visiting his Grandparents’ houses, and he looked forward to the little spoiling certain to come his way.

Molly has arrived home from Vassar to reveal that she has an important announcement to make. Her mother, Suzanne, is convinced that Molly’s news is history repeating herself and that she’s about to become a 36-year-old grandmother. Suzanne’s mother, Ava, develops a case of impending great-grandmother fever - that is, when she’s not spying on the new next-door neighbor, Buddy McKinley, who turns out to be a blast from her past.

From “the great German-language writer of his generation” (Joshua Cohen) comes the second novel of Christian Kracht’s career narrated by an eponymous “Christian”. Eurotrash begins in Zurich, where Christian has returned to care for his 80-year-old mother after her discharge from a psychiatric institution. Confronting the dark shadows of his family’s past—particularly his grandfather’s strong ties with the Nazi regime—and struggling to navigate the emotionally wrenching terrain of his relationship with his mother, he sets off on a road trip with her.

""That rarest phenomenon: a war novel that feels at once timeless and precisely of the moment…"" —Washington Post A poignant coming-of-age story with the sensitivity and haunting power of What Belongs to You and Swimming in the Dark, about a young boy wrestling with his sexuality as war...

After years spent living on the run, Samuel Hawley moves with his teenage daughter, Loo, to Olympus, Massachusetts. There, in his late wife's hometown, Hawley finds work as a fisherman, while Loo struggles to fit in at school and grows curious about her mother's mysterious death. Haunting them both are twelve scars Hawley carries on his body, from twelve bullets in his criminal past - a past that eventually spills over into his daughter's present, until together they must face a reckoning yet to come.

New York Times best-selling author Jennifer Chiaverini’s delightful Elm Creek Quilts series features strong women who face life head-on and chronicle their triumphs and tragedies in elaborate quilts. Here, listeners meet Rosa Diaz Barclay, a woman fighting for her family’s survival in Prohibition-era Southern California.

Ésta es la historia de Gregory Reeves, un gringo que sobrevive en el difícil mundo de los hispanos de California. Gregory quiere llevar a la práctica el peculiar «plan infinito» que se trazó a sí mismo en su infancia. Sin embargo, para conseguirlo debe recorrer un duro camino lleno de obstáculos: la marginación social, el racismo, el brutal contraste entre pobreza y riqueza o la guerra de Vietnam.

In The Lonely Polygamist, Udall pens a tragicomic tale starring Golden Richards - who despite having four wives and 28 children, hasn’t quite found fulfillment in life. Like other men in the midst of a mid-life crisis, Golden feels as though he’s drowning. His wives squabble amongst themselves, and he hardly has time for all his children - least of all the 11-year-old who’s taken a keen interest in explosives.

Sara Stanley is only 14, but she can weave tales that are impossible to resist. In the charming town of Carlisle, children and grown-ups alike flock from miles around to hear her spellbinding narratives. And when Bev King and his younger brother, Felix, arrive for the summer, they, too, are captivated by the Story Girl.

In 1896, in a pilgrim church in the Alps, an abandoned baby girl is found by a cook and a housemaid. They take her home, and Annika grows up in the servants' quarters of a house belonging to three eccentric Viennese professors. She is happy there but dreams of the day when her real mother will come to find her. One day a glamorous stranger arrives at the door.

Joan Didion's electrifying first novel is a haunting portrait of a marriage whose wrong turns and betrayals are at once absolutely idiosyncratic and a razor-sharp commentary on the history of California. Everett McClellan and his wife, Lily, are the great-grandchildren of pioneers, and what happens to them is a tragic epilogue to the pioneer experience, a story of murder and betrayal that only Didion could tell with such nuance, sympathy, and suspense.

Midwestern movie house owner Virgil Wander is "cruising along at medium altitude" when his car flies off the road into icy Lake Superior. Virgil survives, but his language and memory are altered, and he emerges into a world no longer familiar to him. Awakening in this new life, Virgil begins to piece together his personal history and the lore of his broken town, with the help of a cast of affable and curious locals. Into this community returns a shimmering prodigal son who may hold the key to reviving their town.

Zou Lei, orphan of the desert, migrates to work in America and finds herself slaving in New York's kitchens. She falls in love with a young man whose heart has been broken in another desert. A new life may be possible if together they can survive homelessness, lockup, and the young man's nightmares, which may be more prophecy than madness.

“A mesmerizing, head-spinning—and sometimes madcap-hilarious—take of have and have-nots.”—People (Book of the Week) NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY REAL SIMPLE AND KIRKUS REVIEWS “In the smart, breezy, sweet spot between Meg Wolitzer and Elin Hilderbrand...