Simone de Beauvoir

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

Illinois

In three "immensely intelligent stories about the decay of passion" (The Sunday Herald Times [London]), Simone de Beauvoir draws us into the lives of three women, all past their first youth, all facing unexpected crises.
 
Enthralling as faction, suffused with de Beauvoir's remarkable insights into women, The Woman Destroyed gives us a legendary writer at her best.

The Woman Destroyed

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Sylvia Plath

Short Stories, Prose, and Diary Excerpts

"What I fear most, I think, is the death of the imagination. . . . If I sit still and don't do anything, the world goes on beating like a slack drum, without meaning. We must be moving, working, making dreams to run toward; The poverty of life without dreams is too horrible to imagine." -- Sylvia Plath, "Cambridge Notes" (From Notebooks, February 1956) Renowned for her poetry, Sylvia Plath was also a brilliant writer of prose. This collection of short stories, essays, and diary excerpts highlights her fierce concentration on craft, the vitality of her intelligence, and the yearnings of her imagination. Featuring an introduction by Plath's husband, the late British poet Ted Hughes, these writings also reflect themes and images she would fully realize in her poetry. Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams truly showcases the talent and genius of Sylvia Plath.

Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams

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Zadie Smith

A Novel

Struggling with a stale marriage and the misguided passions of his three adult children, long-suffering art professor Howard Belsey finds his family life thrown into turmoil by his son's engagement to the socially prominent daughter of a right-wing icon. By the author of White Teeth. Reader's Guide available. Reprint. 250,000 first printing.

On Beauty

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Maya Angelou

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

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Donna Tartt

Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

Richard Papen, a relatively impoverished student at a New England college, falls in with an exclusive clique of rich, worldly Greek scholars and soon learns the dreadful secret that keeps them together. Reader's Guide included. Reprint. 50,000 first printing.

The Secret History

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Christopher J. Yates

"One game. Six students. Five survivors. It was only ever meant to be a game played by six best friends in their first year at Oxford University; a game of consequences, silly forfeits, and childish dares. But then the game changed: the stakes grew higher and the dares more personal and more humiliating, finally evolving into a vicious struggle with unpredictable and tragic results. Now, fourteen years later, the remaining players must meet again for the final round. Who knows better than your best friends what would break you? A gripping psychological thriller partly inspired by the author's own time at Oxford University, this is perfect for fans of The Secret History and The Bellwether Revivals. The author's background in puzzle writing and setting can clearly be seen in the plotting of this clever, tricky book that will keep readers guessing to the very end"--

Black Chalk

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Jason Rekulak

NATIONAL BESTSELLER · OPTIONED FOR NETFLIX BY A PRODUCER OF THE BATMAN

"I loved it." --Stephen King

From Edgar Award-finalist Jason Rekulak comes a wildly inventive spin on the supernatural thriller, for fans of Stranger Things and Riley Sager, about a woman working as a nanny for a young boy with strange and disturbing secrets.

Mallory Quinn is fresh out of rehab when she takes a job as a babysitter for Ted and Caroline Maxwell. She is to look after their five-year-old son, Teddy.

Mallory immediately loves it. She has her own living space, goes out for nightly runs, and has the stability she craves. And she sincerely bonds with Teddy, a sweet, shy boy who is never without his sketchbook and pencil. His drawings are the usual fare: trees, rabbits, balloons. But one day, he draws something different: a man in a forest, dragging a woman's lifeless body.

Then, Teddy's artwork becomes increasingly sinister, and his stick figures quickly evolve into lifelike sketches well beyond the ability of any five-year-old. Mallory begins to wonder if these are glimpses of a long-unsolved murder, perhaps relayed by a supernatural force.

Knowing just how crazy it all sounds, Mallory nevertheless sets out to decipher the images and save Teddy before it's too late.

Hidden Pictures

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Zoë Bossiere

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

A Boyhood Memoir

A striking literary memoir of genderfluidity, class, masculinity, and the American Southwest that captures the author's experience coming of age in a Tucson, Arizona, trailer park. Newly arrived in the Sonoran Desert, eleven-year-old Zoë's world is one of giant beetles, thundering javelinas, and gnarled paloverde trees. With the family's move to Cactus Country RV Park, Zoë has been given a fresh start and a new, shorter haircut. Although Zoë doesn't have the words to express it, he experiences life as a trans boy--and in Cactus Country, others begin to see him as a boy, too. Here, Zoë spends hot days chasing shade and freight trains with an ever-rotating pack of sunburned desert kids, and nights fending off his own questions about the body underneath his baggy clothes. As Zoë enters adolescence, he must reckon with the sexism, racism, substance abuse, and violence endemic to the working class Cactus Country men he's grown close to, whose hard masculinity seems as embedded in the desert landscape as the cacti sprouting from parched earth. In response, Zoë adopts an androgynous style and new pronouns, but still cannot escape what it means to live in a gendered body, particularly when a fraught first love destabilizes their sense of self. But beauty flowers in this desert, too. Zoë persists in searching for answers that can't be found in Cactus Country, dreaming of a day they might leave the park behind to embrace whatever awaits beyond. Equal parts harsh and tender, Cactus Country is an invitation for readers to consider how we find our place in a world that insists on stark binaries, and a precisely rendered journey of self-determination that will resonate with anyone who's ever had to fight to be themself.

Cactus Country

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Chantal V. Johnson

A "deeply original" (Elif Batuman), "violently funny" (Myriam Gurba), "brilliant and unforgettable" (Deesha Philyaw) debut about a young lawyer finally confronting her dark past

To the outside observer, Vivian is a success story--a dedicated lawyer who advocates for mentally ill patients at a New York City psychiatric hospital. Privately, Vivian contends with the memories and aftereffects of her bad childhood--compounded by the everyday stresses of being a Black Latinx woman in America. She lives in a constant state of hypervigilant awareness that makes even a simple subway ride into a heart-pounding drama.



For years, Vivian has self-medicated with a mix of dating, dieting, dark humor and smoking weed with her BFF, Jane. But after a family reunion prompts Vivian to take a bold step, she finds herself alone in new and terrifying ways, without even Jane to confide in, and she starts to unravel. Will she find a way to repair what matters most to her?



A debut from a stunning talent, Post-traumatic is a new kind of survivor narrative, featuring a complex heroine who is blazingly, indelibly alive. With razor-sharp prose and mordant wit, Chantal V. Johnson performs an extraordinary feat, delivering a psychologically astute story about the aftermath of trauma that somehow manages to brim with warmth, laughter, and hope.

 

Post-Traumatic

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Catherine Chidgey

A new novel from the Women's Prize for Fiction longlisted and Dublin Literary Award shortlisted author of Remote Sympathy, Catherine Chidgey. Like every other girl in her class, twelve-year-old Justine is drawn to her glamorous, charismatic new teacher and longs to be her pet. However, when a thief begins to target the school, Justine's sense that something isn't quite right grows ever stronger. With each twist of the plot, this gripping story of deception and the corrosive power of guilt takes a yet darker turn. Young as she is, Justine must decide where her loyalties lie. Set in New Zealand in the 1980s and probing themes of racism, misogyny and the oppressive reaches of Catholicism, Pet will take a rightful place next to other classic portraits of childhood betrayal: The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, The Go-Between, Heavenly Creatures and Au Revoir Les Enfants among them. "Refreshing, compelling and surprising."--Ann Morgan, author of Beside Myself and Reading the World

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Lindsay Hunter

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

The third title in Roxane Gay Books' inaugural list, Hot Springs Drive is an urgent, vicious blade of a novel about a shocking betrayal and its aftermath, asking just how far you'll go to have everything you want A standout in an impressive body of work that has been called "mesmerizing . . . visceral . . . exquisite" (Chicago Tribune), Hot Springs Drive is a twisting literary page-turner that will appeal to readers of Celeste Ng and Mary Gaitskill. Jackie loved her best friend Theresa from the moment they met nearly fifteen years ago. Now, Theresa is dead and everyone knows who killed her. Jackie Newsome wants to be many things, but a martyr has never been one of them. She is an ex-emotional eater and mother of four, who has finally lost the weight she long yearned to be free of. In her new, sharp-edged body, leaving her old self behind proves harder than she ever imagined. And while she believes she should be happier, a new hunger chases her, and motherhood threatens to subsume what little is left of her. She finds comfort in her best friend Theresa, whose seemingly perfect life she desperately covets. The two navigate the trials of motherhood side by side - Theresa with her quiet, cherubic daughter, and Jacquelyn with her rambunctious, unruly boys. Their bond is tight, but it is not enough to keep Jacquelyn, finally moving through the world in the body she has always wanted, from stealing a bit of Theresa's perfect life by having an increasingly torrid affair with Theresa's husband, Adam. Hot Springs Drive is a dark, heart-pounding exploration of one woman's deepest desires, and the lives she will destroy to satisfy them. In her third and fiercest novel, acclaimed literary voice Lindsay Hunter deftly peels back the fragile veneer of two suburban families and the secrets roiling between them.

Hot Springs Drive

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Stephanie Berg

Stephanie Berg

@stephanie532240

Books Listed

Following

Followers

Simone de Beauvoir

The Woman Destroyed

Sylvia Plath

Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams

Zadie Smith

On Beauty

Maya Angelou

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Donna Tartt

The Secret History

Christopher J. Yates

Black Chalk

Jason Rekulak

Hidden Pictures

Zoë Bossiere

Cactus Country

Chantal V. Johnson

Post-Traumatic

Catherine Chidgey

Pet

Lindsay Hunter

Hot Springs Drive

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Simone de Beauvoir

The Woman Destroyed

Sylvia Plath

Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams

Zadie Smith

On Beauty

Maya Angelou

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Donna Tartt

The Secret History

Christopher J. Yates

Black Chalk

Jason Rekulak

Hidden Pictures

Zoë Bossiere

Cactus Country

Chantal V. Johnson

Post-Traumatic

Catherine Chidgey

Pet

Lindsay Hunter

Hot Springs Drive

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