Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

Georgia

A deft analysis and appreciation of fiction--what makes it work and what can make it fail.

Here is a book about the craft of writing fiction that is thoroughly useful from the first to the last page--whether the reader is a beginner, a seasoned writer, or a teacher of writing. You will see how a work takes form and shape once you grasp the principles of momentum, tension, and immediacy. "Tension," Stern says, "is the mother of fiction. When tension and immediacy combine, the story begins." Dialogue and action, beginnings and endings, the true meaning of "write what you know," and a memorable listing of don'ts for fiction writers are all covered. A special section features an Alphabet for Writers: entries range from Accuracy to Zigzag, with enlightening comments about such matters as Cliffhangers, Point of View, Irony, and Transitions.

Making Shapely Fiction

11c1ab3f-0bd0-4666-94a4-27446ee063ee-1

California

A Novel

An "absurdly amusing" (The New York Times Book Review) sequel to Martha Grimes's bestselling novel, Foul Matter, this wicked satire of the publishing industry is "comic, caustic, and relentlessly readable" (Booklist).

Writer Cindy Sella is having trouble with her new novel. Aside from her paralyzing writer's block, she's faced with a lawsuit from her ex-agent, L. Bass Hess. Hess will stop at nothing to collect a commission from Cindy on her previous novel, which he did not represent since she had fired him long before it was published.

Hitmen Candy and Karl--first introduced in Foul Matter--are asked to "get rid" of L. Bass Hess. They join forces with a publishing mogul, a bestselling author, an out-of-work Vegas magician, an alligator wrangler, a glamorous Malaysian con lady, and Hess's aunt in the Everglades who has undergone a wildly successful sex change, and concoct a plan to save Cindy Sella from the odious machinations of Hess by driving him (slowly, hilariously) crazy.

Grimes's fans will delight in the return of several colorful characters from Foul Matter, including Senior Editor Clive Esterhaus, unprincipled publisher Bobby Mackenzie, and ex-mobster and author Danny Zito, currently under the witness protection program. New readers will find that these characters and their escapades shed an amusing light on the New York publishing scene. Informed and influenced by the author's own publishing adventures, "The Way of All Fish is a goofily offbeat delight" (The Washington Post).

The Way of All Fish

f49d6b50-868b-4713-8913-af9fb2ecadb9

#paperback #fiction #bestseller #literature #adult #adultfiction #international #nationalbestseller 

Texas

After years of lonely political exile, Turkish poet Ka returns to Istanbul to attend his mother's funeral and learns about a series of suicides among pious girls forbidden to wear headscarves.

Snow

74944659-9f3f-4db9-80f1-197de1c7cc5f-1

#paperback #exlibrary #europeanfiction #shortstories #anthology #literature #european 

Indiana

The Vintage Book of Contemporary Eastern European Writing

Forty-three distinguished writers from sixteen Eastern European nations--including Poland, Russia, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Albania--provide illuminating studies of the absurdities, tragedies, and conditions of their homelands and the world at large. Original.

Description of a Struggle

45d7cd3d-2709-4044-ace9-f5b7788800e1-1

#fiction #paperback #literature 👍 copy of this vintage paperback

Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour an introduction

Has some highlighting #paperback #literature

Literature As Exploration

Initials on inside cover, light stains on last three pages. Otherwise great condition. This is the UK edition so this cover is harder to find in the US. #literature #paperback 

Tennessee

Brown University, 1982. Madeleine Hanna, incurable romantic, is studying Jane Austen and George Eliot - authors of the great marriage plots. A madeleine contemplates the age-old motivations of the human heart, real life, in the form of two very different men, intervenes. The charismatic Leonard Bankhead attracts Madeleine with an intensity she fells powerless to resist. Meanwhile her old friend Mitchell is certain of only one thing in life - that he and Madeleine are destined to be together. As all three leave college, they must decide the ending of their very own marriage plot [Source : 4e de couv.].

The Marriage Plot

d449c20a-f2fc-4cfe-a331-246632c52943-1

#paperback #fiction #youngadult #mystery #literature #autism #bestseller #drama 

New York

Despite his overwhelming fear of interacting with people, Christopher, a mathematically-gifted, autistic fifteen-year-old boy, decides to investigate the murder of a neighbor's dog and uncovers secret information about his mother.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

4b8df1ef-f128-454b-bf44-9d29fbc9c02b-1

#fiction #poetry #paperback #beowulf #fantasy #mythology #classic #medieval #literature #school 

Pennsylvania

A Verse Translation

Beowulf

6a67ce51-16ce-4339-9229-81ce17fb654f-1

#fiction #paperback #classics #thecrucible #play #classic #literature #drama #arthurmiller

North Carolina

A haunting examination of groupthink and mass hysteria in a rural community A Penguin Classic "I believe that the reader will discover here the essential nature of one of the strangest and most awful chapters in human history," Arthur Miller wrote in an introduction to The Crucible, his classic play about the witch-hunts and trials in seventeenth-century Salem, Massachusetts. Based on historical people and real events, Miller's drama is a searing portrait of a community engulfed by hysteria. In the rigid theocracy of Salem, rumors that women are practicing witchcraft galvanize the town's most basic fears and suspicions; and when a young girl accuses Elizabeth Proctor of being a witch, self-righteous church leaders and townspeople insist that Elizabeth be brought to trial. The ruthlessness of the prosecutors and the eagerness of neighbor to testify against neighbor brilliantly illuminate the destructive power of socially sanctioned violence. Written in 1953, The Crucible is a mirror Miller uses to reflect the anti-communist hysteria inspired by Senator Joseph McCarthy's "witch-hunts" in the United States. Within the text itself, Miller contemplates the parallels, writing: "Political opposition...is given an inhumane overlay, which then justifies the abrogation of all normally applied customs of civilized behavior. A political policy is equated with moral right, and opposition to it with diabolical malevolence." For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

The Crucible

86e60336-2917-465d-9f65-efd7594ba0de-1

#paperback #fiction #adventure #lifeofpi #classicists #fantasy #adventurestories #animals #literature #manbooker  

Arizona

Life of Pi

80ebbbbb-da05-4a22-a9c3-ad1fcb2e5da7-1

Ships securely and with care! Smoke Free Home #paperback #marktwain #classic #historicalfiction #comingofage #tomsawyer #adventure #literature #huckelberryfinn

American Classic

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Ships securely and with care! Smoke Free Home #paperback #classic #marktwain #historicalfiction #literature #huckleberryfinn #americanclassic #adventure #comingofage #tomsawyer

Unabridged and Annotated 

The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn

Ships securely and with care! Smoke Free Home #paperback #fiction #virginiawoolf #classic #family #england #modern #war #literature #mrsdalloway 

Classic Literature 

Clarissa Dalloway, elegant and vivacious, is preparing for party and remembering those she once loved. In another part of London, Septimus Warren Smith is shell-shocked and on the brink of madness. Smith's day interweaves with that of Clarissa and her friends, their lives converging as the party reaches it glittering climax.

Mrs. Dalloway

edd24094-5023-4f47-a2c2-ca140e3ba643-1

Heavy Paperback (2 to 4 lbs)

Alabama

Vanity Fair 

#paperback #fiction #gender #human #lgbt #literature #love #trans 

Kentucky

From the bestselling author of The Flight Attendant comes a thought-provoking story about gender, love, and new relationships.

When Allison Banks develops a crush on Dana Stevens, she knows that he will give her what she needs most: attention, gentleness, kindness, passion. Her daughter, Carly, enthusiastically witnesses the change in her mother. But then a few months into their relationship, Dana tells Allison his secret: he has always been certain that he is a woman born into the wrong skin, and soon he will transition. Allison, overwhelmed by the depth of her passion, finds herself unable to leave Dana. By deciding to stay, she finds she must confront questions most people never even consider. Not only will her own life and Carly's be irrevocably changed, she will have to contend with the outrage of a small Vermont community and come to terms with her lover's new body-hoping against hope that her love will transcend the physical.

Jerome Stern

Making Shapely Fiction

Martha Grimes

The Way of All Fish

Orhan Pamuk

Snow

Michael March; Ivan Klíma

Description of a Struggle

J. D. Salinger

Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour an introduction

Louise M. Rosenblatt

Literature As Exploration

Jeffrey Eugenides

The Marriage Plot

Mark Haddon

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Anonymous

Beowulf

Arthur Miller; Christopher W. E. Bigsby (Introduction by)

The Crucible

Yann Martel

Life of Pi

Mark Twain

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Mark Twain

The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn

Virginia Woolf; Maureen Howard (Foreword by)

Mrs. Dalloway

William Makepeace Thackeray

Vanity Fair

Chris Bohjalian

Trans-Sister Radio