Eleanor Catton

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

A Novel

All the world's a stage--and nowhere is that more true than at an all-girls high school, particularly one where a scandal has just erupted. A teacher has had an affair with his underage student, and though her friends pretend to be dismayed, they are secretly curious and jealous. They obsessively examine the details of the affair under the watchful eye of their stern and enigmatic saxophone teacher, whose focus may not be as strictly on their upcoming recital as she implies. When the local drama school turns the story of the scandal into their year-end show, the real world and the world of the theater are forced to meet. With both performances--the musicians' and the acting students'--approaching, the boundaries between dramas real and staged, private and public, begin to dissolve. THE REHEARSAL is a tender portrait of teenage yearning and adult regret, an exhilarating, darkly funny, provocative novel about the complications of human desire.

The Rehearsal

666a0bd3-36a2-4c24-8202-ef225c956261-1

Hanya Yanagihara

Heavy Paperback (2 to 4 lbs)

New Jersey

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR The New York Times - The Washington Post - The Wall Street Journal - NPR - Vanity Fair - Vogue - Minneapolis Star Tribune - St. Louis Post-Dispatch - The Guardian - O, The Oprah Magazine - Slate - Newsday - Buzzfeed - The Economist - Newsweek - People - Kansas City Star - Shelf Awareness - Time Out New York - Huffington Post - Book Riot - Refinery29 - Bookpage - Publishers Weekly - Kirkus WINNER OF THE KIRKUS PRIZE A MAN BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST A NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST A Little Life follows four college classmates--broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition--as they move to New York in search of fame and fortune. While their relationships, which are tinged by addiction, success, and pride, deepen over the decades, the men are held together by their devotion to the brilliant, enigmatic Jude, a man scarred by an unspeakable childhood trauma. A hymn to brotherly bonds and a masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century, Hanya Yanagihara's stunning novel is about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves.

A Little Life

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Holly Gramazio

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

"A novel about a woman who one day comes home to find her attic is magic and producing an endless supply of interchangeable husbands"--

The Husbands

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Ottessa Moshfegh

California

Named a Best Book of the Year by The Washington Post, Time, NPR, Amazon,Vice, Bustle, The New York Times, The Guardian, Kirkus Reviews, Entertainment Weekly, The AV Club, & Audible A New York Times Bestseller “One of the most compelling protagonists modern fiction has offered in years: a loopy, quietly furious pillhead whose Ambien ramblings and Xanaxed b*tcheries somehow wend their way through sad and funny and strange toward something genuinely profound.” — Entertainment Weekly “Darkly hilarious . . . [Moshfegh’s] the kind of provocateur who makes you laugh out loud while drawing blood.” —Vogue From one of our boldest, most celebrated new literary voices, a novel about a young woman's efforts to duck the ills of the world by embarking on an extended hibernation with the help of one of the worst psychiatrists in the annals of literature and the battery of medicines she prescribes. Our narrator should be happy, shouldn't she? She's young, thin, pretty, a recent Columbia graduate, works an easy job at a hip art gallery, lives in an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan paid for, like the rest of her needs, by her inheritance. But there is a dark and vacuous hole in her heart, and it isn't just the loss of her parents, or the way her Wall Street boyfriend treats her, or her sadomasochistic relationship with her best friend, Reva. It's the year 2000 in a city aglitter with wealth and possibility; what could be so terribly wrong? My Year of Rest and Relaxation is a powerful answer to that question. Through the story of a year spent under the influence of a truly mad combination of drugs designed to heal our heroine from her alienation from this world, Moshfegh shows us how reasonable, even necessary, alienation can be. Both tender and blackly funny, merciless and compassionate, it is a showcase for the gifts of one of our major writers working at the height of her powers.

My Year of Rest and Relaxation

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Geraldine Brooks

Excellent condition. Read, but no rips, tears, folds, etc.  

Minnesota

"Brooks' chronological and cross-disciplinary leaps are thrilling." --The New York Times Book Review

"Horse isn't just an animal story--it's a moving narrative about race and art." --TIME

A discarded painting in a junk pile, a skeleton in an attic, and the greatest racehorse in American history: from these strands, a Pulitzer Prize winner braids a sweeping story of spirit, obsession, and injustice across American history

Kentucky, 1850. An enslaved groom named Jarret and a bay foal forge a bond of understanding that will carry the horse to record-setting victories across the South. When the nation erupts in civil war, an itinerant young artist who has made his name on paintings of the racehorse takes up arms for the Union. On a perilous night, he reunites with the stallion and his groom, very far from the glamor of any racetrack. 
 
New York City, 1954. Martha Jackson, a gallery owner celebrated for taking risks on edgy contemporary painters, becomes obsessed with a nineteenth-century equestrian oil painting of mysterious provenance.
 
Washington, DC, 2019. Jess, a Smithsonian scientist from Australia, and Theo, a Nigerian-American art historian, find themselves unexpectedly connected through their shared interest in the horse--one studying the stallion's bones for clues to his power and endurance, the other uncovering the lost history of the unsung Black horsemen who were critical to his racing success.
 
Based on the remarkable true story of the record-breaking thoroughbred Lexington, Horse is a novel of art and science, love and obsession, and our unfinished reckoning with racism.

Horse

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Paulo Coelho

The Witch of Portobello

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Victoria Mas

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

Soon to be a major film from Amazon Studios, the prizewinning French bestseller "In this darkly delightful Gothic treasure, Mas explores grief, trauma, and sisterhood behind the walls of Paris's infamous Salpêtrière hospital." --Paula Hawkins, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Girl on the Train The Salpetriere Asylum: Paris, 1885. Dr. Charcot holds all of Paris in thrall with his displays of hypnotism on women who have been deemed mad and cast out from society. But the truth is much more complicated--these women are often simply inconvenient, unwanted wives, those who have lost something precious, wayward daughters, or girls born from adulterous relationships. For Parisian society, the highlight of the year is the Lenten ball--the Madwomen's Ball--when the great and good come to gawk at the patients of the Salpetriere dressed up in their finery for one night only. For the women themselves, it is a rare moment of hope. Genevieve is a senior nurse. After the childhood death of her sister Blandine, she shunned religion and placed her faith in both the celebrated psychiatrist Dr. Charcot and science. But everything begins to change when she meets Eugenie, the 19-year-old daughter of a bourgeois family that has locked her away in the asylum. Because Eugenie has a secret: she sees spirits. Inspired by the scandalous, banned work that all of Paris is talking about, The Book of Spirits, Eugenie is determined to escape from the asylum--and the bonds of her gender--and seek out those who will believe in her. And for that she will need Genevieve's help . . .

Mad Women's Ball

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A Novel*

"Confined to a wheelchair after a paralyzing injury, an Afghanistan War veteran endures a hardscrabble existence in his sister's ramshackle Mississippi home before spontaneously regaining his ability to walk, an apparent miracle that subjects him to scientific and religious debates and exposes his most private secrets."--

Anatomy of a Miracle

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#paperback #fiction #interiorchinatown #literary #adult #charlesyu #contemporary 

Louisiana

"From the infinitely inventive author of How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe comes a deeply personal novel about race, pop culture, assimilation, and escaping the roles we are forced to play."--

Interior Chinatown

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Charles Yu

#paperback #literary #AmericanBookAward #domestic #midwest #WWII #France #murder #Illinois

Iowa

Quality Paperback Book Club Compilation 

Time Will Darken It/The Chateau/So Long, See You Tomorrow 

Illinois

A Spy in the House of Love

Trilussa Tutte Le Poesie (All the Poems) Edited by Pietro Pancrazi (1953, Hardcover) *Italian Language Edition* 4th Printing - Arnoldo Mondadori, publishers - Cracked spine, previous owner's name inscribed, page edges stamped, exterior a bit scruffy; illustrated.

Trilussa: All the Poems (Italian Edition)

#reading #esther #literary #carnivalesque #biblical #interpretation

A Case for the Literary Carnivalesque

In this original interpretation of the book of Esther, Kenneth Craig offers to interpreters a new way of reading this story. According to Craig, Esther has been undervalued and misunderstood because its true genre, the literary carnivalesque, has not been considered.

The Literary Currents in Biblical Interpretation series explores current trends within the discipline of biblical interpretation by dealing with the literary qualities of the Bible: the play of its language, the coherence of its final form, and the relationships between text and readers. Biblical interpreters are being challenged to take responsibility for the theological, social, and ethical implications of their readings. This series encourages original readings that breach the confines of traditional biblical criticism.

Reading Esther

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#paperback #literary #reference #American #essays #Harvard #history

Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

America is a nation making itself up as it goes along--a story of discovery and invention unfolding in speeches and images, letters and poetry, unprecedented feats of scholarship and imagination. In these myriad, multiform, endlessly changing expressions of the American experience, the authors and editors of this volume find a new American history.

In more than two hundred original essays, A New Literary History of America brings together the nation's many voices. From the first conception of a New World in the sixteenth century to the latest re-envisioning of that world in cartoons, television, science fiction, and hip hop, the book gives us a new, kaleidoscopic view of what "Made in America" means. Literature, music, film, art, history, science, philosophy, political rhetoric--cultural creations of every kind appear in relation to each other, and to the time and place that give them shape.

The meeting of minds is extraordinary as T. J. Clark writes on Jackson Pollock, Paul Muldoon on Carl Sandburg, Camille Paglia on Tennessee Williams, Sarah Vowell on Grant Wood's American Gothic, Walter Mosley on hard-boiled detective fiction, Jonathan Lethem on Thomas Edison, Gerald Early on Tarzan, Bharati Mukherjee on The Scarlet Letter, Gish Jen on Catcher in the Rye, and Ishmael Reed on Huckleberry Finn. From Anne Bradstreet and John Winthrop to Philip Roth and Toni Morrison, from Alexander Graham Bell and Stephen Foster to Alcoholics Anonymous, Life, Chuck Berry, Alfred Hitchcock, and Ronald Reagan, this is America singing, celebrating itself, and becoming something altogether different, plural, singular, new.

A New Literary History of America

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Kazuo Ishiguro

New York

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK - NATIONAL BESTSELLER - Once in a great while, a book comes along that changes our view of the world. This magnificent novel from the Nobel laureate and author of Never Let Me Go is "an intriguing take on how artificial intelligence might play a role in our futures ... a poignant meditation on love and loneliness" (The Associated Press). BOOKER PRIZE Nominee - GOOD MORNING AMERICA Book Club Pick "What stays with you in 'Klara and the Sun' is the haunting narrative voice--a genuinely innocent, egoless perspective on the strange behavior of humans obsessed and wounded by power, status and fear." --Booker Prize committee Here is the story of Klara, an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities, who, from her place in the store, watches carefully the behavior of those who come in to browse, and of those who pass on the street outside. She remains hopeful that a customer will soon choose her. Klara and the Sun is a thrilling book that offers a look at our changing world through the eyes of an unforgettable narrator, and one that explores the fundamental question: what does it mean to love?

Klara and the Sun

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Readable condition. Cover has some damages and pages are yellowed on edges from age. 

The Stranger

Tom Wolfe

The Bonfire of the Vanities

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Never been read and has been sitting on my TBR. 

Heavy Hardcover (2 to 4 lbs)

Maryland

Hollow Kingdom Duology Bundle

Claire North

Indiana

Wildly original, funny and moving, The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August is an extraordinary story of a life lived again and again from World Fantasy Award-winning author Claire North.

Harry August is on his deathbed. Again.

No matter what he does or the decisions he makes, when death comes, Harry always returns to where he began, a child with all the knowledge of a life he has already lived a dozen times before. Nothing ever changes.

Until now.

As Harry nears the end of his eleventh life, a little girl appears at his bedside. "I nearly missed you, Doctor August," she says. "I need to send a message."

This is the story of what Harry does next, and what he did before, and how he tries to save a past he cannot change and a future he cannot allow.

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August

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Sophocles

"Passages from Ancient Authors" includes selections from Homer's Odyssey, Thucydides' account of the plague, and Euripedes' Phoenissae.

The best of ancient and modern criticism is represented, encouraging discussion from psychological, religious, anthropological, dramatic, and literary perspectives.

Under the heading "Religion and Psychology" are included writings on the Oedipus myth by Martin P. Nilsson, Meyer Fortes, Gordon M. Kirkwood, Thalia Phillies Feldman, and Sigmund Freud.

The authors of the selections in "Criticism" are Aristotle, C. M. Bowra, R. C. Jebb, S. M. Adams, A. J. A. Waldock, Albin Lesky, Werner Jaeger, Friedrich Nietzsche, John Jones, D. W. Lucas, Bernard M. W. Knox, Cedric H. Whitman, Richmond Lattimore, Robert Cohen, Francis Fergusson, and H. D. F. Kitto.

The special question of Oedipus's guilt or innocence is addressed in essays by J. T. Sheppard, Laszlo Versenyi, P. H. Vellacott, E. R. Dodds, Thomas Gould, and Philip Wheelwright.

Michigan

The text is accompanied by a wealth of carefully chosen background materials and essays.



"Passages from Ancient Authors" includes selections from Homer's Odyssey, Thucydides' account of the plague, and Euripedes' Phoenissae.



The best of ancient and modern criticism is represented, encouraging discussion from psychological, religious, anthropological, dramatic, and literary perspectives.



Under the heading "Religion and Psychology" are included writings on the Oedipus myth by Martin P. Nilsson, Meyer Fortes, Gordon M. Kirkwood, Thalia Phillies Feldman, and Sigmund Freud.



The authors of the selections in "Criticism" are Aristotle, C. M. Bowra, R. C. Jebb, S. M. Adams, A. J. A. Waldock, Albin Lesky, Werner Jaeger, Friedrich Nietzsche, John Jones, D. W. Lucas, Bernard M. W. Knox, Cedric H. Whitman, Richmond Lattimore, Robert Cohen, Francis Fergusson, and H. D. F. Kitto.



The special question of Oedipus's guilt or innocence is addressed in essays by J. T. Sheppard, Laszlo Versenyi, P. H. Vellacott, E. R. Dodds, Thomas Gould, and Philip Wheelwright.

Oedipus Tyrannus

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New Hampshire

"A captivating tale of love and loss and finding connection in the most unexpected places" --Nikki Marmery, author of On Wilder Seas

A lyrical and atmospheric homage to the strange and extraordinary, perfect for fans of Angela Carter and Erin Morgenstern.

This is the story of The Greatest Funambulist Who Ever Lived...

Born into a post-war circus family, our nameless star was unwanted and forgotten, abandoned in the shadows of the big top. Until the bright light of Serendipity Wilson threw her into focus.

Now an adult, haunted by an incident in which a child was lost from the circus, our narrator, a tightrope artiste, weaves together her spellbinding tales of circus legends, earthy magic and folklore, all in the hope of finding the child... But will her story be enough to bring the pair together again?

Beautiful and intoxicating, A Girl Made of Airbrings the circus to life in all of its grime and glory; Marina, Manu, Serendipity Wilson, Fausto, Big Gen and Mouse will live long in the hearts of readers. As will this story of loss and reconciliation, of storytelling and truth.



A Girl Made of Air

45870892-3f7e-4e5d-8041-37527839a882-1

Emily Usher

Paperback copy (currently, only hardcovers are being sold).

Oregon

A story of first love that will break your heart, this bittersweet debut novel follows two teenagers whose all-consuming relationship is tested by the forces of class, prejudice, and addiction. “Reading this book is like holding a heartbeat in your hands.”—Amy Jo Burns, author of Mercury There were parts that were bliss, there were parts that were full and faultless and laden with joy. The way everything Danny and I did, everything we felt, we did, we felt together. The way we loved and loved and loved each other. From the beginning, it has always been Neef and her mother, Chrissy—troubled, beautiful, at the mercy of addiction and a revolving door of bad relationships. When Neef turns twelve, they move from inner-city Leeds to a small Yorkshire town to follow Chrissy’s much-older boyfriend, who runs the local pub. But for Neef, perhaps it’s also a chance to start over. On her first day in her new home, it becomes Neef and Danny, the boy who captures her attention planting flowers in the pub garden—and then, it is somehow always Danny. Danny is seen as an outsider by those around him; half Jamaican, he and his father are the only people of color in their community. Immediately drawn to each other, Neef and Danny form a friendship that gives way to the slow burn of romance as they grow up. Desperate to escape the confines of their world, Neef and Danny cling to each other throughout their adolescence, even as their relationship strains against the same forces that hold their families hostage: substance abuse, poverty, racism. For a while, though, it seems like it could be Neef and Danny forever. But then, finally, it is just Neef: sober, living in London, trying to tell herself she never knew a boy called Danny, never loved him, never had him wrenched away. That is, until someone from those days comes seeking redemption, and she cannot pretend any longer. Braiding together past and present, Wild Ground introduces us to a young woman both coming of age and coming to terms with herself. This tender and moving debut, at once heartbreaking and hopeful, is an aching love story that you will find impossible to forget.

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Eleanor Catton

The Rehearsal

Hanya Yanagihara

A Little Life

Holly Gramazio

The Husbands

Ottessa Moshfegh

My Year of Rest and Relaxation

Geraldine Brooks

Horse

Paulo Coelho

The Witch of Portobello

Victoria Mas

Mad Women's Ball

Jonathan Miles

Anatomy of a Miracle

Charles Yu

Interior Chinatown

Charles Yu

Interior Chinatown

William Maxwell

Time Will Darken It/The Chateau/So Long, See You Tomorrow

Anais Nin

A Spy in the House of Love

Pietro Pancrazi

Trilussa: All the Poems (Italian Edition)

Kenneth Craig

Reading Esther

Greil Marcus (Editor); Werner Sollors (Editor)

A New Literary History of America

Kazuo Ishiguro

Klara and the Sun

Albert Camus

The Stranger

Tom Wolfe

The Bonfire of the Vanities

Hanya Yanagihara

A Little Life

Kira Jane Buxton

Hollow Kingdom Duology Bundle

Claire North

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August

Sophocles

Oedipus Tyrannus

Nydia Hetherington

A Girl Made of Air

Emily Usher

ARC – Wild Ground