ENGLISH WRITING SKILLS

ENGLISH WRITING SKILLS 



8 KINDS OF WRITING

ACADEMIC WRITING

ACADEMIC WRITING COURSE

ACADEMIC WRITING FROM PARAGRAPH TO ESSAY

EMAIL ENGLISH

GREAT WRITING 2 GREAT PARAGRAPHS

PARAGRAPH WRITING

PRACTISE WRITING

READING & WRITING TARGETS 1

READING & WRITING TARGETS 2

READING & WRITINGTARGETS 3

REAL WRITING 

SUCCESSFUL WRITING INTERMEDIATE

SUCCESSFUL WRITING PROFICIENCY

SUCCESSFUL WRITING UPPER INTERMEDIATE

TEACHING WRITING SKILLS

WRITING ACADEMIC ENGLISH

WRITING FROM WITHIN

WRITING SENSE

WRITING WITH POWER

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And Blessed Are The Ones Who Care For Their Fellow Men!

THE GOLDFINCH Donna Tartt

THE GOLDFINCH  Donna Tartt 

Overview:

A long-awaited, elegant meditation on love, memory and the haunting power of art.

Tartt (The Little Friend, 2002, etc.) takes a long time, a decade or more, between novels. This one, her third, tells the story of a young man named Theodore Decker who is forced to grapple with the world alone after his mother—brilliant, beautiful and a delight to be around—is felled in what would seem to be an accident, if an explosion inside a museum can be accidental. The terrible wreckage of the building, a talismanic painting half buried in plaster and dust, “the stink of burned clothes, and an occasional soft something pressing in on me that I didn’t want to think about”—young Theo will carry these things forever. 

Tartt’s narrative is in essence an extended footnote to that horror, with his mother becoming ever more alive in memory even as the time recedes: not sainted, just alive, the kind of person Theo misses because he can’t tell her goofy things (his father taking his mistress to a Bon Jovi concert in Las Vegas, for instance: “It seemed terrible that she would never know this hilarious fact”) as much as for any other reason. The symbolic echoes Tartt employs are occasionally heavy-handed, and it’s a little too neat that Theo discovers the work of the sublime Dutch master Carel Fabritius, killed in a powder blast, just before the fateful event that will carry his mother away. 

Yet it all works. “All the rest of it is lost—everything he ever did,” his mother quietly laments of the little-known artist, and it is Theo’s mission as he moves through life to see that nothing in his own goes missing. Bookending Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, this is an altogether lovely addition to what might be called the literature of disaster and redemption. 

The novel is slow to build but eloquent and assured, with memorable characters, not least a Russian cracker-barrel philosopher who delivers a reading of God that Mordecai Richler might applaud.

A standout—and well worth the wait.

"Dazzling....[A] glorious, Dickensian novel, a novel that pulls together all Ms. Tartt's remarkable storytelling talents into a rapturous, symphonic whole and reminds the reader of the immersive, stay-up-all-night pleasures of reading."--Michiko Kakutani, New York Times

"The Goldfinch is a rarity that comes along perhaps half a dozen times per decade, a smartly written literary novel that connects with the heart as well as the mind....Donna Tartt has delivered an extraordinary work of fiction."--Stephen King, The New York Times Book Review

"The Goldfinch is a book about art in all its forms, and right from the start we remember why we enjoy Donna Tartt so much: the humming plot and elegant prose; the living, breathing characters; the perfectly captured settings....Joy and sorrow exist in the same breath, and by the end The Goldfinch hangs in our stolen heart."--Vanity Fair

"A long-awaited, elegant meditation on love, memory, and the haunting power of art....Eloquent and assured, with memorable characters....A standout-and well-worth the wait."--Kirkus (Starred Review)

"Drenched in sensory detail, infused with Theo's churning thoughts and feelings, sparked by nimble dialogue, and propelled by escalating cosmic angst and thriller action, Tartt's trenchant, defiant, engrossing, and rocketing novel conducts a grand inquiry into the mystery and sorrow of survival, beauty and obsession, and the promise of art."--Booklist (Starred Review)

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And Blessed Are The Ones Who Care For Their Fellow Men!

Last Exit to Brooklyn Hubert Selby Jr.

Last Exit to Brooklyn  Hubert Selby Jr.

Overview:

"An extraordinary achievement . . . a vision of hell so stern it cannot be chuckled or raged aside.”—The New York Times Book Review

“As dramatic and immediate as the click of a switchblade knife.”—Los Angeles Times

“The raw strength and concentrated power of Last Exit to Brooklyn make it one of the really great works of fiction about the underground labyrinth of our cities.”—Harry T. Moore

“Last Exit to Brooklynshould explode like a rusty hellish bombshell over America and still be eagerly read in a hundred years.”—Allen Ginsberg

“Drops like a sledgehammer. Emotionally beaten, one leaves it a different person—slightly changed, educated by pain, as Goethe said.”—The Nation

“Selby has an unerring instinct for honing our collapse into novels as glittering and as cutting as pure, block, jagged glass.”—Saturday Review

“Scorching, unrelenting, pulsing.”—Newsweek

“The marriage of brutal street life and gorgeous bebop prose.” —Richard Price, from his “My Five Most Essential Books,” published in Newsweek (April 13, 2009)

The first novel to articulate the rage and pain of life in "the other America," Last Exit to Brooklyn is a classic of postwar American writing. Selby's searing portrait of the powerless, the homeless, the dispossessed, is as fiercely and frighteningly apposite today as it was when it was first published more than thirty-five years ago.

"An extraordinary achievement,...a vision of hell so stern it cannot be chuckled or raged aside."--The New York Times Book Review

"As dramatic and immediate as the click of a switchblade knife."--Los Angeles Times

"The raw strength and concentrated power of Last Exit to Brooklyn make it one of the really great works of fiction about the underground labyrinth of our cities."--Harry T. Moore

"Last Exit to Brooklyn should explode like a rusty hellish bombshell over America and still be eagerly read in a hundred years."--Allen Ginsberg

"Drops like a sledgehammer. Emotionally beaten, one leaves it a different person-slightly changed, educated by pain, as Goethe said."--The Nation

"Selby has an unerring instinct for honing our collapse into novels as glittering and as cutting as pure, black, jagged glass."--Saturday Review

"Scorching, unrelenting, pulsing."--Newsweek

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And Blessed Are The Ones Who Care For Their Fellow Men!

ePUB COLLECTION 10-19-13

ePUB COLLECTION 10-19-13

A. B. Guthrie Jr - The Way West (1950 Pulitzer Prize)
Adam Johnson - The Orphan Master's Son (2012) (2013 Pulitzer Prize)
Alice Walker - The Color Purple (1982) (1983 Pulitzer Prize)
Alison Lurie - Foreign Affairs (1985 Pulitzer Prize)
Anne Tyler - Breathing Lessons (1988) (1989 Pulitzer Prize)
Bernard Malamud - The Fixer (1967 Pulitzer Prize)
Booth Tarkington - Alice Adams (1921) (1922 Pulitzer Prize)
Booth Tarkington - The Magnificent Ambersons (1918) (1919 Pulitzer Prize)
Carol Shields - The Stone Diaries (1993) (1995 Pulitzer Prize)
Cormac McCarthy - The Road (2006) (2007 Pulitzer Prize)
E. Annie Proulx - The Shipping News (1993) (1994 Pulitzer Prize)
Edith Wharton - The Age of Innocence (1920) (1921 Pulitzer Prize)
Edward P. Jones - The Known World (2003) (2004 Pulitzer Prize)
Elizabeth Strout - Olive Kitteridge (2008) (2009 Pulitzer Prize)
Ernest Hemingway - The Old Man and the Sea (1952) (1953 Pulitzer Prize)
Ernest Poole - His Family (1917) (1918 Pulitzer Prize)
Eudora Welty - The Optimist's Daughter (1973 Pulitzer Prize)
Geraldine Brooks - March (2005) (2006 Pulitzer Prize)
Harper Lee - To Kill A Mockingbird (1960) (1961 Pulitzer Prize)
Herman Wouk - The Caine Mutiny (1951) (1952 Pulitzer Prize)
James A. Michener - Tales of the South Pacific (1946) (1948 Pulitzer Prize)
James Agee - A Death In The Family (1957) (1958 Pulitzer Prize)
Jane Smiley - A Thousand Acres (1991) (1992 Pulitzer Prize)
Jeffrey Eugenides - Middlesex (2002) (2003 Pulitzer Prize)
Jennifer Egan - A Visit from the Goon Squad (2010) (2011 Pulitzer Prize)
Jhumpa Lahiri - Interpreter of Maladies (1999) (2000 Pulitzer Prize) nine short stories by Indian American
John Cheever - The Stories of John Cheever (1979 Pulitzer Prize)
John Hersey - A Bell for Adano (1945 Pulitzer Prize)
John Kennedy Toole - A Confederacy of Dunces (1980) (1981 Pulitzer Prize)
John Steinbeck - The Grapes of Wrath (1939) (1940 Pulitzer Prize)
John Updike - [Harry Rabbit Angstrom 03] - Rabbit is Rich (1982 Pulitzer Prize)
John Updike - [Harry Rabbit Angstrom 04] - Rabbit at Rest (1991 Pulitzer Prize)
Junot Diaz - The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007) (2008 Pulitzer Prize)
Katherine Anne Porter - Collected Stories and Other Writings (1966 Pulitzer Prize)
Larry McMurtry - Lonesome Dove (1985) (1986 Pulitzer Prize)
Lee Martin - The Bright Forever (2005) (2006 Pulitzer Prize Runner Up)
Margaret Mitchell - Gone with the Wind (1936) (1937 Pulitzer Prize)
Marilynne Robinson - Gilead (2004) 2005 Pulitzer Prize
Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings - The Yearling (1938) (1939 Pulitzer Prize)
Michael Chabon - The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (2001) Pulitzer Prize
Michael Cunningham - The Hours (1998) (1999 Pulitzer Prize)
Michael Shaara - The Killer Angels (1975) Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
Norman Mailer - The Executioner's Song (1980 Pulitzer Prize)
Paul Harding - Tinkers (2009) 2010 Pulitzer Prize
Pearl S. Buck - The Good Earth (1931) (1932 Pulitzer Prize)
Philip Roth - American Pastoral (1997) (1998 Pulitzer Prize)
Richard Ford - [Frank Bascombe 02] - Independence Day (1995) (1996 Pulitzer Prize)
Richard Russo - Empire Falls (2001) Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
Robert Penn Warren - All the King's Men (1947 Pulitzer Prize)
Saul Bellow - Humboldt's Gift (1975) (1976 Pulitzer Prize)
Shirley Ann Grau - The Keepers of the House (1965 Pulitzer Prize)
Sinclair Lewis - Arrowsmith (1925) (1926 Pulitzer Prize) (declined prize)
Thornton Wilder - The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1927) (1928 Pulitzer Prize)
Toni Morrison - Beloved (1987) (1988 Pulitzer Prize)
Wallace Stegner - Angle of Repose (1971) (1972 Pulitzer Prize)
Willa Cather - One of Ours (1923 Pulitzer Prize)
William Faulkner - A Fable (1954) (1955 Pulitzer Prize)
William Faulkner - The Reivers (1963) Pulitzer Prize
William Kennedy - Ironweed (1984 Pulitzer Prize)
William Styron - The Confessions of Nat Turner (1968 Pulitzer Prize) 

 

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And Blessed Are The Ones Who Care For Their Fellow Men!

The Death of Bees Lisa O’Donnell

The Death of Bees Lisa O’Donnell

Overview:

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.

Written with fierce sympathy and beautiful precision, and told in alternating voices, The Death of Bees by Lisa O’Donnell is an enchanting, grimly comic tale of lost souls who, unable to answer for themselves, can answer only for each other.

“In this first novel she pulls off the unusual pairing of grisly and touching.” (New York Times)

“O’Donnell walks a fine line, describing appalling events without ever allowing the novel to lose its warm heart....The Death of Bees is that rare thing: a family-values black comedy.” (Christian Science Monitor)

“Wild, witty and as funny as it is unsettling. The Death of Bees is really about the strength of sisters, the sparkle of imagination and how even the most motley of half lives can somehow coalesce into a shining whole.” (Houston Chronicle)

“O’Donnell’s finely drawn characters display the full palette of human flaws and potential. Told in the alternating voices of Marnie, Nelly, and Lennie, this beautifully written page-turner will have readers fretting about what will become of the girls.” (Booklist (starred review))

“[A] chiller told in three voices which will intrigue readers to the last pages…O’Donnell has done a masterful job of sketching her characters…The end is largely unexpected and highly dramatic, but at the same time is the perfect ending to this chilling tale…[a] brilliant book.” (Examiner (Northern California))

“With characters and voices the remind me of other strong debut novels (like Fates Will Find Their Way and Vaclav and Lena), this book will appeal to readers who like a strong voice, dark humor, and compelling story lines told in a literary yet accessible way.” (Publishers Weekly)

“Lisa O’Donnell, an award-winning screenwriter, grabs the reader from the get-go...” (Fort Worth Star-Telegram)

“The author brilliantly paints the characters’ best traits through the eyes of the other characters, and their worst traits through their own voices.” (RT Book Reviews)

“O’Donnell’s wildly original debut examines the intricacies of betrayal and loyalty within one family and their effects on two vulnerable young girls…With a gritty but redemptive take on family and the price of secrets, O’Donnell’s debut will be well-received by fans of mainstream literature and Scottish noir mysteries alike.” (Shelf Awareness)

“The sisters and Lennie narrate alternating chapters, moving the story along at a fast clip....The difference between the sisters in terms of personality and maturity puts them at odds despite their shared fear of discovery. But their resilience suggests hope for their blighted lives.” (Publishers Weekly (boxed review))

“In more ways than the first line, The Death of Bees reminds me of Donoghue’s Room. Maybe it’s because both authors originated from the United Kingdom. Maybe it’s because both stories carry a darkness brightened only by the innocence of the main characters. (Spencer Daily Reporter)

“The quirky characters and thrilling plotlines will leave readers anxious to find out what will become of the girls. This poignant, compelling, and hopeful tale teaches readers that a desperate situation can always be alleviated by reaching out to others.” (The Hub)

“This is a sweet, funny book filled with two sister’s unrelenting love for each other and their determination to stay together at all costs…it is a good read and if you are interested in being taken on a crazy ride, this is the book for you.” (Bibliophage)

“As a gothic novel and a psychological look at the effects of trauma, it had verve and nerve…O’Donnell knows how to keep a reader engaged, and her sympathy -- and hope -- for her characters tempers what could have been a sordid tale.” (Columbus Dispatch)

“Quirky characters with distinct voices enliven this sometimes grim and often funny coming-of-age story in the vein of Karen Russell’s best seller Swamplandia! O’Donnell’s debut is sure to be a winner.” (Library Journal)

“An unusual coming-of-age novel that features two sisters who survive years of abuse and neglect....The author’s experience as a screenwriter is most definitely apparent, as the reader always hears the voices and can visualize the dramatic, sometimes appallingly grim scenes. Recommended.” (Kirkus Reviews)

“The Death of Bees is completely addictive. A beautiful and darkly funny story of two sisters building a fantasy within a nightmare.” (Alison Espach, author of The Adults)

“The Death of Bees is compelling stuff, engaging the emotions from the first page and quickly becoming almost impossible to put down.” (Herald (Scotland))

“As the action reaches a feverish climax…dark comedy is replaced by nerve-shredding tension…the reader is thoroughly caught up in the emotional trials and tribulations of two unlikely heroines….Warm without being cozy, explicit without being shocking, and emotive without being schmaltzy…a powerful coming-of-age tale…” (Scotsman)

“This vibrantly-imagined novel, by turns hilarious and appalling, is hard to resist.” (Daily Mail (London))

“Mixing The Ladykillers with Irvine Welsh’s The Acid House… O’Donnell adeptly balances caustic humour and compassion.” (Guardian)

“The Death of Bees steadily draws you into its characters’ emotional lives.” (Financial Times)

“The most original and incredible piece of writing I’ve come across in years.” (Helen Fitzgerald, author of Dead Lovely)

“Warm without being cozy, explicit without being shocking, and emotive without being schmaltzy . . . a powerful coming-of-age tale.” (Scotsman)

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And Blessed Are The Ones Who Care For Their Fellow Men!

Golden Boy Abigail Tarttelin

Golden Boy Abigail Tarttelin

Overview:

The Walker family is good at keeping secrets from the world. They are even better at keeping them from each other.

Max Walker is a golden boy. Attractive, intelligent, and athletic, he’s the perfect son, the perfect friend, and the perfect crush for the girls in his school. He’s even really nice to his little brother. Karen, Max’s mother, is a highly successful criminal lawyer, determined to maintain the façade of effortless excellence she has constructed through the years. Now that the boys are getting older, now that she won’t have as much control, she worries that the façade might soon begin to crumble. Adding to the tension, her husband, Steve, has chosen this moment to stand for election to Parliament. The spotlight of the media is about to encircle their lives.

The Walkers are hiding something, you see. Max is special. Max is different. Max is intersex. When an enigmatic childhood friend named Hunter steps out of his past and abuses his trust in the worst possible way, Max is forced to consider the nature of his well-kept secret. Why won’t his parents talk about it? What else are they hiding from Max about his condition and from each other? The deeper Max goes, the more questions emerge about where it all leaves him and what his future holds, especially now that he’s starting to fall head over heels for someone for the first time in his life. Will his friends accept him if he is no longer the Golden Boy? Will anyone ever want him—desire him— once they know? And the biggest one of all, the question he has to look inside himself to answer: Who is Max Walker, really?

Written by twenty-five-year-old rising star Abigail Tarttelin, Golden Boy is a novel you’ll read in one sitting but will never forget; at once a riveting tale of a family in crisis, a fascinating exploration of identity and a coming-of-age story like no other.

“Abigail Tarttelin is a fearless writer. In Golden Boy, she balances a harrowing coming of age with a deeply compassionate portrait of a family in crisis, and the result is sometimes brutal, often tender, and always compelling. This is a gripping and fully-realized novel.”
(Emily St. John Mandel, author of The Lola Quartet)

“Abigail Tarttelin has written an unforgettable novel. Golden Boy pulls you in from the very first page and holds you tight, gripping you by the throat and not letting go until it reaches its brilliant and masterful conclusion. Max Walker is the golden boy, and you will root for him, cry for him, fear for him, at times get angry at him but guaranteed you will never forget him. Not ever. The characters who make up Max's universe, from determined Karen, to distant Steve, to a deceitful Hunter, are all written in a perfect pitch. The dialogue is real, the pace is stealth bomber fast, and the plot never lets up. Tarttelin has blasted it out of the park in her first at bat here in the States. She has written a novel that goes beyond the page and reaches into a reader's heart and stays there, never to leave, never to be forgotten. Golden Boy is that good of a novel, and Tarttelin is that gifted of a writer. This book simply deserves to be read and treasured.”
(Lorenzo Carcaterra, author of Sleepers and Midnight Angels)

“Golden Boy is at once meditative and swift, a coming-of-age tale about the difficulties of growing up amid shame and secrets and success. Abigail Tarttelin writes with a sharp-eyed grace in this fascinating, heartfelt gem of a novel.”
(Dean Bakopoulos, author of My American Unhappiness)

“Golden Boy is terrific. A poignant, brave and important book.”
(S.J. Watson, author of Before I Go To Sleep)

“Gritty yet humane, startlingly modern yet utterly timeless, Golden Boy hits all the deepest, biggest novelistic notes—family, identity, tragedy and hope—without the merest hint of strain. In Abigail Tarttelin's American debut, she has already proven herself to be a writer of extraordinary empathy and incredible wisdom... and she makes it look so easy. Tarttelin is the real deal.”
(Rachel Shukert, author of Starstruck and Everything Is Going To Be Great)

“A dramatic, thoroughgoing investigation of the complexities of sexuality and gender.... A warmly human coming-of-age story, thanks to the fact that Max is such an appealing character. And so his desperate search for identity is gripping, emotionally engaging, and genuinely unforgettable.”
(Booklist (starred))

“Gripping and beautifully-written, Abigail Tarttelin's Golden Boy is a courageous and profound exploration of social and sexual identity and its world of manifold complexities and challenges."
(Sahar Delijani, author of Children of the Jacaranda Tree)

“...gripping...”
(Cosmopolitan)

“Tarttelin writes sensitively about how an intersex child might cope with the heightened emotions of adolescence.”
(Entertainment Weekly)

“...intense and fearless.... With empathy and imagination, Tarttelin describes an adolescent search for identity made monstrous by Max's uncertainty over that self-identifier most of us take for granted: am I a man or a woman?”
(Publishers Weekly)

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And Blessed Are The Ones Who Care For Their Fellow Men!

Little Known Facts Christine Sneed

Little Known Facts Christine Sneed

Overview:

The people who orbit around Renn Ivins, an actor of Harrison Ford-like stature--his girlfriends, his children, his ex-wives, those on the periphery--long to experience the glow of his fame. Anna and Will are Renn's grown children, struggling to be authentic versions of themselves in a world where they are seen as less important extensions of their father. They are both drawn to and repelled by the man who overshadows every part of them.

Most of us can imagine the perks of celebrity, but Little Known Facts offers a clear-eyed story of its effects--the fallout of fame and fortune on family members and others who can neither fully embrace nor ignore the superstar in their midst. With Little Known Facts, Christine Sneed emerges as one of the most insightful chroniclers of our celebrity-obsessed age, telling a story of influence and affluence, of forging identity and happiness and a moral compass; the question being, if we could have anything on earth, would we choose correctly?

"Reminds us of Jennifer Egan's meta-fiction, Richard Ford's Americana, Daniel Kehlmann's preoccupations." --GQ, UK edition

"A beautiful and funny novel about living in the shadows of the movie business." --Essentials Magazine, UK

"Christine Sneed's impressive debut novel, Little Known Facts, is a Hollywood tale that aspires to complicate the traditional Hollywood narrative.  Its characters want to swap sincerity for surface, real anxiety for contrived problems."  --Mark Athitakis, Minneapolis Star Tribune

March 3, 2013 - Editor's Choice - New York Times Book Review

"Little Known Facts" is a supple story of modern love, aging, and what it means to seek happiness, set around the edges of the movie industry. Perhaps surprisingly, given the rarefied location, Sneed brings her book to a realistic and satisfying ending.  --Brooklyn Bugle, Alexandra Bowie

“Impressive. . . hypnotic. . . hard to put down. . . . Little Known Facts is juicy enough to appeal to our prurience but smart enough not to make us feel dirty afterward…. Sneed is such a gifted writer… Her depiction of both proximity to celebrity and celebrity itself had me totally convinced.” —Curtis Sittenfeld, New York Times Book Review (cover)

“An entertaining, formally inventive read …the world that Sneed creates in Little Known Facts— a blend of truth and fiction that weaves real life actors and directors into Renn's everyday life — makes for a clever take and a fun read.” —Los Angeles Times

"I grabbed Christine Sneed's novel Little Known Facts on my way out the door this weekend and ate it up. It's a great canny read: wry, observant, inventive in style, rich in character. Christine Sneed knows her Hollywood, but more than that, she knows her people." —Jess Walter, author of Beautiful Ruins and National Book Award finalist for The Zero

"Sneed possesses uncanny insight into the power dynamics in families, friendships and workplaces. Exquisitely structured, with its spotlight segueing among characters, bits of tabloids, journal entries and overheard conversations, Little Known Facts is one of those rare novels that is both profound and fun." —Chicago Tribune, Editor's Choice

"An ensnaring first novel that delves into the complex challenges and anguish of living with and in the shadow of celebrity. Sneed’s wit, curiosity, empathy, and ability to divine the perfect detail propel this psychologically exquisite, superbly realized novel of intriguing, caricature-transcending characters and predicaments…As Sneed illuminates each facet of her percussively choreographed plot via delectably slant disclosures—overheard conversations, snooping, tabloids, confessions under duress, and journal entries, among them—she spotlights ‘little known facts’ about the cost of fame, our erotic obsession with movie-star power, and where joy can be found." —Booklist (starred review)

“Sneed is a graceful prose stylist; sentence by sentence Little Known Facts is clean, spare and uncluttered.” —San Francisco Chronicle

"The gravitational pull of fame in a celebrity-obsessed culture informs this smart, fresh debut about a family living in the shadow cast by its larger-than-life patriarch." —Bonnie Jo Campbell, National Book Award finalist for American Salvage

"Sneed inhabits her characters’ interior lives with impressive clarity and precision." —Time Out Chicago

“Goes beyond the tabloid headlines… Sneed effectively blurs the line between fact and fiction and brings each character to life.” —Kirkus Reviews

"Christine Sneed's compelling first novel, Little Known Facts, reads with the effortlessness of a page-turner. The story is located at an intersection of romance - make that romances--fame, and physical beauty, and yet Sneed's insight into her credibly drawn characters combined with the novel's multi-faceted construction make the story anything but formulaic, and confer upon its subjects the depth and grace of the author's lucid prose and book's imaginative construction." —Stuart Dybek, author of I Sailed With Magellan

"Christine Sneed's Little Known Facts is a contemporary, culturally vibrant novel brimming with superb dialog, a sharp sense of scene and narrative pace, emotional/psychological clarity, and a bracing humanity. A blazing piece of work." —Floyd Skloot, author of In the Shadow of Memory

“[An] impressive debut…a Hollywood tale that aspires to complicate the traditional Hollywood narrative.” —Minneapolis Star Tribune

"I tore through this instantly engaging box of literary candy in a weekend and immediately thought: TV series, HBO or AMC-style." —MSN

“Five years ago, Salman Rushdie was so impressed with fiction writer Christine Sneed that he included her work in 2008's Best American Short Stories anthology. But the Evanston resident has kept a low-profile, occasionally producing more short stories in the years since. That's about to change though, with the publication of Sneed's elegant first novel, Little Known Facts.” —Chicago Magazine
"Sneed writes with authority and deftness." —New City

“Well-crafted and character-focused . . . . the story’s shifting perspectives are expertly intertwined and never heavy-handed . . . . Little Known Facts tells a story that moves beyond the salacious lives of its characters, illustrating the difficulties and obsessions that are as common within Hollywood as outside of it.” —Zzyzzyva

“If Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad and Jess Walter’s Beautiful Ruins had an illicit affair, Christine Sneed’s Little Known Facts might be the love child.” —Kirkus Reviews

"I really, really loved Little Known Facts. From the point f view of those closest to Hollywood super star Renn Ivins we see that flaws and foibles of the airbrushed lives of the rich and famous and the people closest to them. This is a deeply sensitive novel that takes the reader into a world of usually glamorized or carefully spun by publicists, revealing the havoc wreaked on most of the lives of ex's and offspring and lovers and the stars themselves. This insightful novel avoids moralizing, though in the end the moral might well be 'Be careful what you wish for." —Cathy Langer, Tattered Cover

“I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. The writing is fresh, and so honest.  And she shows us that everyone, no matter how famous or rich, is human and capable of making mistakes.  All we really want in life is to be happy and content but many of us never get there because we are so wrapped up in what we should be doing or what others think of us. Will struggles in the glitzy shadows of his move star father, only not really sure whether he should go to law school or follow in his father's footsteps, or even in his mother's or sister's. both of whom are successful medical doctors. How can any of these related people have a healthy romantic relationship when their father is on his third wife, the most recent one the age of his daughter Anna?

While we all read the tabloids about famous movie stars like Brad and Angie, little do we know that they are all wondering about their role in this world. Christine Sneed brings us into their world, showing us that not matter how famous one may be, all of us are facing the same question.  Who are we and what do we want from our life? An insightful read, Little Known Facts will make you think, make you laugh and perhaps

feel a little sad at how fame and fortune can give a family such wealth, yet also cause so much damage to our intimate lives. Everyone will want to read this novel to catch a glimpse into this world of glitter and fame of Hollywood.”—Annie Philbrick, Bank Square Books, Mystic, Connecticut (President, New England Independent Booksellers Association)

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And Blessed Are The Ones Who Care For Their Fellow Men!

Lotería Mario Alberto Zambrano

Lotería Mario Alberto Zambrano

Overview:

In Lotería, the spellbinding literary debut by Mario Alberto Zambrano, a young girl tells the story of her family’s tragic demise using a deck of cards of the eponymous Latin American game of chance.

With her older sister Estrella in the ICU and her father in jail, eleven-year-old Luz Castillo has been taken into the custody of the state. Alone in her room, she retreats behind a wall of silence, writing in her journal and shuffling through a deck of lotería cards. Each of the cards’ colorful images—mermaids, bottles, spiders, death, and stars—sparks a random memory.

Pieced together, these snapshots bring into focus the joy and pain of the young girl’s life, and the events that led to her present situation. But just as the story becomes clear, a breathtaking twist changes everything.

Beautiful full-color images of lotería cards are featured throughout this intricate and haunting novel.

“Sometimes what Zambrano leaves off the page is just as important as what’s been written. This narrative sleight of hand shows Zambrano’s gift for evoking great pain in stark, lyrical sketches.” (Los Angeles Times)

“It’s a polished tome of prose unreeling the tale of plucky little Luz Maria Castillo in the game of chance called life… Loteria should delight and disturb any reader sensitive to the ways of children and how they think and, more importantly, how deeply they feel.” (Dallas Morning News)

“Loteria…captures, from a wide-eyed yet uncloying child’s perspective, the way in which life can feel a lot like a game of chance.” (Vogue, “Summer Reads”)

“Coming of Age through bingo—the weirder, magical Mexican version.” (New York)

“[Zambrano’s] debut novel…is a polished tome of prose unreeling the tale of plucky little Luz Maria Castillo in the game of chance called life.… We peer like voyeurs, artfully led by Zambrano’s pacing, dialogue and comically drawn characters.” (Houston Chronicle)

“LOTERIA is a taut, fraught, look at tragedy, its aftermath, and the stories we tell ourselves to survive. With suspense, dread, and always the possibility for redemption, we watch as Zambrano flips the cards of chance and fate.” (Justin Torres, author of We The Animals)

“LOTERIA… is constructed as a beautiful, gripping, and lyrical set of riddles (asked and solved) about life—and—death matters in one family. Like the novels of Cortazar, its form is intricate and beautiful. ” (Charles Baxter, author of Gryphon: New and Selected Stories and The Feast of Love)

“Mario Alberto Zambrano performs a lyrical and formal sleight of hand conjuring a spiritually profound and deeply moving story. Loteria is about everything that matters. . . . This gorgeous, one-of-a-kind debut, marks the emergence of a singular and powerful new literary voice.” (Amber Dermont, New York Times bestselling author of The Starboard Sea and Damage Control: Stories)

“In a bold, deeply-felt debut Mario Alberto Zambrano brings us tragedy made powerful … These are people who hold on to each other so hard it hurts. And this moving novel will hug you too, every bit as tight.” (Josh Weil, author of The New Valley)

“Take the architecture of Calvino’s The Castle of Crossed Destinies and marry it to the wide-open childhood receptivity of McCullers’s The Member of the Wedding, and you might achieve something like the effect of LOTERIA.” (Kevin Brockmeier, author of The Brief History of the Dead)

“If a book can be a spirit, this one is lithe, beautiful, and true. Mario Alberto Zambrano brings the heart of an artist immersed in movement and music to his prose and the result is dazzling.” (Ru Freeman, author of A Disobedient Girl)

“Loteria, charms on every page, despite heartache, love and loss. . . . The beauty and joy of her voice overcomes the hardships of her life, and by the end we have fallen in love. Bravo to a marvelous debut!” (Andrew Sean Greer, author of The Confessions of Max Tivoli)

“Mario Alberto Zambrano’s Loteria is a tender, beautifully written story. In every line, Zambrano finds the happy and sad music of childhood. It is an entrancing work.” (Lynne Tillman, author of Someday This Will Be Funny)

“Lotería is the card-based Mexican variant of bingo and, in the hands of Zambrano, it’s a deck stacked with narrative possibilities.… An intriguing debut and an elegiac, miniature entry in the literature of Latin American diaspora that will break your heart.” (Publishers Weekly (starred review))

“Zambrano’s stellar debut is proof positive that good things come in small packages.” (Booklist(starred review))

“The broken tale and imaginative first-person narration lend weight to this curious novel. It’s an impressive first step for an artist exploring a new medium.” (Kirkus Reviews)

“In this debut novel, a Mexican-American girl uses the game of Loteria to reveal her memories, which add up to a heartwenching tale of violence, love and a broken family.” (Los Angeles Times, “Summer Reading”)

“This is a smart and powerful tale, beautifully rendered by a sensitive artist.” (Shelf Awareness)

“Loteria is… like stumbling onto the gut-wrenching journal of a preteen girl. It’s imaginative, mysterious, and sometimes too real.” (Daily Candy)

“…Loteria reaches a rare plane where it transcends its form and comes alive as a commentary on character, family and culture.” (Brooklyn Rail)

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The Panopticon Jenni Fagan

The Panopticon Jenni Fagan

Overview:

Named one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists

Shortlisted for The Desmond Elliott Award

Shortlisted for The James Tait Black Prize

Shortlisted for the Dundee International Book Prize

A dazzling debut novel by one of Granta’s Best Young British Novelists featuring an unforgettable young heroine

Anais Hendricks, fifteen, is in the back of a police car. She is headed for the Panopticon, a home for chronic young offenders. She can't remember what’s happened, but across town a policewoman lies in a coma and Anais’s school uniform is covered in blood.

Raised in foster care from birth and moved through twenty-three placements before she even turned seven, Anais has been let down by just about every adult she has ever met. Now a counter-culture outlaw, she knows that she can only rely on herself. And yet despite the parade of horrors visited upon her early life, she greets the world with the witty, fierce insight of a survivor.

Anais finds a sense of belonging among the residents of the Panopticon – they form intense bonds, and she soon becomes part of an ad hoc family. Together, they struggle against the adults that keep them confined. When she looks up at the watchtower that looms over the residents though, Anais knows her fate: she is an anonymous part of an experiment, and she always was. Now it seems that the experiment is closing in.

Named one of the best books of the year by the Times Literary Supplement and the Scotsman, The Panopticon is an astonishingly haunting, remarkable debut novel. In language dazzling, energetic and pure, it introduces us to a heartbreaking young heroine and an incredibly assured and outstanding new voice in fiction.

“Fagan has created a feisty, brass-knuckled yet deeply vulnerable heroine, who feels like sort of a cross between Lisbeth Salander, Stieg Larsson’s 'Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,' and one of Irvine Welsh’s drug-taking Scottish miscreants from 'Trainspotting' or 'Skagboys.' Her novel is by turns gritty, unnerving, exhausting, [and] ferocious...A deeply felt and genuinely affecting novel.” —Michiko Kakutani, New York Times

“Fagan has given us one of the most spirited heroines to cuss, kiss, bite and generally break the nose of the English novel in many a moon…there is no resisting the tidal rollout of Fagan’s imagery. Her prose beats behind your eyelids, the flow of images widening to a glittering delta whenever Anais approaches the vexed issue of her origins…vive Jenni Fagan...whose next book just moved into my ‘eagerly anticipated’ pile.”—Tom Shone, New York Times Book Review

“[Fagan] grew up in what’s euphemistically called ‘the care system,’ and she writes about these young people with a deep sympathy for their violently disordered lives and an equally deep appreciation of their humor and resiliency…[Fagan has a] rousing voice, with its roundly rendered Scottish accent.”—Ron Charles, Washington Post

“Fagan’s style calls to mind fellow Scottish writer Anthony Burgess, whose novel A Clockwork Orange used similar lexicographic liberties to reinforce a theme of teenage dystopia” —The Daily Beast

“[A] terrific portrait of a young criminal…Fagan makes this ugly life somehow beautiful.”—Alan Cheuse, NPR

"The Panopticon [is] a terrifically gritty and vivid debut.” —Cleveland Plain Dealer

 “She’s Oliver, with a twist. Anais Hendricks, 15, and the female protagonist of poetess Fagan’s first novel, cuts right to the chase as she chronicles the modern British foster care system.” —New York Post

“The Panopticon is like its protagonist: tough as old boots and always ready with the fists, but likely to steal your heart if you’ll just slow down and listen.”—National Post

 “Fagan creates a complex and vulnerable character…[and] even though Anais makes it hard for you to love her, you can’t help wishing her out of her plight and cheering her upward.” —Bust (four stars)

"The Panopticon is an exquisite first novel--Jenni Fagan has created a dark, disturbing, yet ultimately hopeful portrait of a young woman growing up alone in the Scottish foster care system.  To say it is haunting is an understatement--I kept wanting to set a place for Anais at the table with the rest of my children."—Vanessa Diffenbaugh, New York Times bestselling author of The Language of Flowers

"Jenni Fagan has created a high-resolution portrait of a throwaway kid. Fifteen-year-old Anais, born in a mental ward, tumbled through the social work system, violated and violent, high on whatever, each decision she makes is a jaunty wave as she sails past the next point of no return. This is a contemporary tragedy of the highest order." —Carol Anshaw, New York Times bestselling author of Carry the One

“In the Margaret Atwood/The Handmaid’s Tale vein—very literary and suspenseful. I like books set in an altered reality—one that feels familiar and yet also deeply unfamiliar, that embodies some of the dailiness of life, and yet slowly reveals itself to be a very different, much more sinister place.”—Gillian Flynn, Oprah.com

"With The Panopticon, Fagan makes Foucault proud and readers ecstastic. This is why we read. You'll begin wanting to save Anais Hendricks but finish wondering if, and how, she's managed to save you."— Tupelo Hassman, author of Girlchild

"Jenni Fagan is the real thing, and The Panopticon is a real treat: maturely alive to the pains of maturing, and cleverly amused as well as appalled by what it finds in the world." -Andrew Motion

"Ferocious and devastating, The Panopticon sounds a battle-cry on behalf of the abandoned, the battered, and the betrayed. To call it a good novel is not good enough: this is an important novel, a book with a conscience, a passionate challenge to the powers-that-be. Jenni Fagan smashes every possible euphemism for adolescent intimacy and adolescent violence, and she does it with tenderness and even humour. Hats off to Jenni Fagan! I will be recommending this book to everyone I know." -Eleanor Catton, author of The Rehearsal

"This is a wonderful book – gripping and brilliant. Anais’s journey will break your heart and her voice is unforgettable. Bursting with wit, humanity and beauty as well as an unflinching portrayal of life as a ‘cared for’ young adult, this book will not let you go." -Kate Williams

"Best debut novel I've read this year." -Irvine Welsh

"Uncompromising and courageous...one of the most cunning and spirited novels I’ve read for years. The story of Anais, a fifteen-year-old girl blasting her way through the care-home system while the system in turn blasts her away to nothing, looks on the surface to be work of a recognizable sort, the post-Dickensian moral realism/fabulism associated with writers like Irvine Welsh. But Fagan’s narrative talent is really more reminiscent of early Camus and that this novel is a debut is near unbelievable. Tough and calm, electrifying and intent, it is an intelligent and deeply literary novel which deals its hope and hopelessness simultaneously with a humaneness, both urgent and timeless, rooted in real narrative subtlety."–Ali Smith, TLS – books of the year

"If you’re trying to find a novel to engage a determinedly illiterate teenager, give them this one. Anais, the 15-year-old heroine and narrator, has a rough, raw, joyous voice that leaps right off the page and grabs you by the throat…This punkish young philosopher is struggling with a terrible past, while battling sinister social workers. Though this will appeal to teenagers, the language and ideas are wholly adult, and the glorious Anais is unforgettable." –The Times

"[A] confident and deftly wrought debut…The Panopticon is an example of what Martin Amis has called the “voice novel”, the success of which depends on the convincing portrayal of an idiosyncratic narrator. In this Fagan excels…Her voice is compellingly realised. We cheer her on as she rails against abusive boyfriends and apathetic social workers, her defiance rendered in a rich Midlothian brogue." –Financial Times

"The most assured and intriguing first novel by a Scottish writer that I have read in a decade, a book which is lithely and poetically written, politically and morally brave and simply unforgettable…Anais’s voice is an intricate blend of the demotic and the hauntingly lyrical…There are moments which are genuinely distressing to read, which return the reader to a painful sense of how mindlessly and unspeakable cruel people can be. But it is marbled with cynical, smart comedy…Fagan is exceptionally skilful with bathos, a notoriously difficult literary register; here, however, it manages to be funny and heart-breakingly tender at the same time…Naturalistic and pleasingly oblique. Life, as Stevenson said, is “infinite, illogical, abrupt and poignant”. To render this novelistically is a rare achievement…The Panopticon appeals to writers since in some ways the novelist is the prison’s arch-overseer, able to look into the minds of the characters. But that comes with a duty: to keep your eyes open even when you’d rather shut them. Fagan is gloriously open-eyed about immaturity, maturity, sexuality, crime, dispossession and more. Her ability to capture the cross-currents of language, the impersonations of consciousness, is admirable…As a debut, The Panopticon does everything it should. It announces a major new star in the firmament." –Stuart Kelly, Scotsman

"[The narrator] is engagingly drawn by Fagan, who has created a character possessed of intellectual curiosity and individual quirks…Written with great verve…Fagan has a clear voice, an unflinching feel for the complexity of the teenage mindset, and an awareness of the burden we impose on children…What’s intriguing here – particularly in a Scottish fiction landscape that can display too much of the plodding everyday – is her effort to lift the story of teen misadventure into a heightened realm of intellectual aspiration and quasi-sci-fi notions of sinister social change." –Scotland on Sunday

"What Fagan depicts in her debut novel, The Panopticon, is a society in which people don't just fall through the net – there is no net…Fagan is writing about important stuff: the losers, the lonely, most of them women. [Anais] maintains a cool, smart, pretty, witty and wise persona." –Guardian

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Snapper Brian Kimberling

Snapper Brian Kimberling

Overview:

ELLE'S LETTRES READERS' PRIZE 2013

O, the Oprah Magazine: 10 Titles to Pick Up Now

Vogue: “Strongest Debut Fictions of the Spring”

Vanity Fair: “Hot Type”

A great, hilarious new voice in fiction: the poignant, all-too-human recollections of an affable bird researcher in the Indiana backwater as he goes through a disastrous yet heartening love affair with the place and its people.

Nathan Lochmueller studies birds, earning just enough money to live on. He drives a glitter-festooned truck, the Gypsy Moth, and he is in love with Lola, a woman so free-spirited and mysterious she can break a man’s heart with a sigh or a shrug. Around them swirls a remarkable cast of characters: the proprietor of Fast Eddie’s Burgers & Beer, the genius behind “Thong Thursdays”; Uncle Dart, a Texan who brings his swagger to Indiana with profound and nearly devastating results; a snapping turtle with a taste for thumbs; a German shepherd who howls backup vocals; and the very charismatic state of Indiana itself. And at the center of it all is Nathan, creeping through the forest to observe the birds he loves and coming to terms with the accidental turns his life has taken.

“Reading Brian Kimberling’s debut novel, Snapper, is a fascinating and disorienting experience. The protagonist is Nathan Lochmueller, a southern Indiana native, who makes a meager living observing the effect of climate change on the region’s songbirds. The single square mile of woods that composes his domain is really a metaphor for the region as a whole, and Lochmueller moves through it with a mixture of familiarity and bewilderment. . . . Like Indiana’s leaves, the colors of Kimberling’s book are vivid, often startling.” —The Washington Post

“Poignant as well as thought-provoking—a delightful departure from the ordinary. . . . It’s quite a feat, to keep readers reading on the strength of laughter. Kimberling . . . turns the trick effortlessly.” —The Seattle Times

“Mr. Kimberling grew up in the Hoosier state, and the book captures the place with wry humor, affection for its woodlands and exasperation with its provincialism.” —The New York Times

“Excellent debut novel . . . a delightful, wry story of a young ornithologist romping around the Indiana backcountry in a glitter-encrusted truck called the Gypsy Moth. There’s no doubting Kimberling’s own expertise in (or obsession with) birding after reading either the book.” —Flavorwire

“Funny+adroit fiction.” —Margaret Atwood, via Twitter

“Brian Kimberling’s Snapper is a phenomenal book, quietly profound and as entertaining as any book I’ve read in the past five years. . . . Kimberling articulates, better than anyone I’ve read, the sorrow that arises from trying to find the magic of one’s youth with the original ingredients.” —Weston Cutter, Minneapolis Star Tribune

“This kind of small-town adolescence is uniquely American, and it’s a lifestyle that’s rapidly vanishing. Brian Kimberling perfectly captures this experience in his debut novel, Snapper. . . . Kimberling writes about all of this in a voice part John Audubon, part Holden Caulfield but uniquely his own. The book’s pace is leisurely, the mood is sometimes melancholy, and readers will finish the final page feeling thoroughly satisfied.” —CNN.com

“[A] hilarious debut novel.” —O, the Oprah Magazine: 10 Titles to Pick Up Now

“Brian Kimberling's debut novel, Snapper, is a lovely, loose-limbed collection of stories about an aimless ornithologist.” —NPR.org, First Reads

“Brian Kimberling’s debut novel, Snapper, captures the high lonesome beauty of a songbird’s canorous call. Nathan Lochmueller, an amateur ornithologist and future falconer, adventures through the Indiana wilds heartsick with Yeatsian love but full of good humor and stumbling grace. As Nathan searches for starlings, he teaches us all to care more deeply about the wonders and dangers of the natural world. Snapper is a brilliant field study, a soulful guide to the humble glories and enduring legacies of the Great Midwest. Brian Kimberling is a writer of serious wit and wisdom.” —Amber Dermont, author of The Starboard Sea and Damage Control

“Brian Kimberling is an amazingly talented and wise writer. Snapper is filled with sly humor and uncommon grace and some of the most memorable characters to appear in fiction in recent years.” —Donald Ray Pollock, author of The Devil All the Time

“[A] catchy, well-written debut novel. . . . [An] accomplished, ironic Midwest coming-of-age tale.” —Publishers Weekly

“In those awkward, drifting, post-college years, when many young men find themselves working behind a counter, Nathan Lochmueller learns he has a gift for tracking songbirds. . . . Told with precise and memorable prose in beautifully rendered, time-shifted vignettes, Snapper richly evokes the emotions of coming to adulthood. Nathan’s fascination with the physical world and with living an authentic and meaningful life, his disdain for jingoistic environmentalism, and his struggle to find balance between the cloistered liberalism of college towns and the conservatism of small towns are thoughtfully explored. All this and it’s funny, too. . . . Kimberling writes gracefully about absurdity, showing a rich feeling for the whole range of human tragicomedy. A delightful debut.” —Booklist, starred review

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The Twelve Tribes of Hattie Ayana Mathis

The Twelve Tribes of Hattie Ayana Mathis 

Overview:

The newest Oprah’s Book Club 2.0 selection

The arrival of a major new voice in contemporary fiction.

A debut of extraordinary distinction: Ayana Mathis tells the story of the children of the Great Migration through the trials of one unforgettable family.

In 1923, fifteen-year-old Hattie Shepherd flees Georgia and settles in Philadelphia, hoping for a chance at a better life. Instead, she marries a man who will bring her nothing but disappointment and watches helplessly as her firstborn twins succumb to an illness a few pennies could have prevented.  Hattie gives birth to nine more children whom she raises with grit and mettle and not an ounce of the tenderness they crave.  She vows to prepare them for the calamitous difficulty they are sure to face in their later lives, to meet a world that will not love them, a world that will not be kind. Captured here in twelve luminous narrative threads, their lives tell the story of a mother’s monumental courage and the journey of a nation.

Beautiful and devastating, Ayana Mathis’s The Twelve Tribes of Hattie is wondrous from first to last—glorious, harrowing, unexpectedly uplifting, and blazing with life. An emotionally transfixing page-turner, a searing portrait of striving in the face of insurmountable adversity, an indelible encounter with the resilience of the human spirit and the driving force of the American dream.

"The Twelve Tribes of Hattie is a vibrant and compassionate portrait of a family hardened and scattered by circumstance and yet deeply a family. Its language is elegant in its purity and rigor. The characters are full of life, mingled thing that it is, and dignified by the writer’s judicious tenderness towards them. This first novel is a work of rare maturity. "

—Marilynne Robinson

"The Twelve Tribes of Hattie is beautiful and necessary from the very first sentence. The human lives it renders are on every page lowdown and glorious, fallen and redeemed, and all at the same time. They would be too heartbreaking to follow, in fact, were they not observed in such a generous and artful spirit of hope, in a spirit of mercy, in the spirit of love. Ayana Mathis has written a treasure of a novel."

—Paul Harding

“Writing with stunning authority, clarity, and courage, debut novelist Mathis pivots forward in time, spotlighting intensely dramatic episodes in the lives of Hattie's nine subsequent children (and one grandchild to make the ‘twelve tribes’), galvanizing crises that expose the crushed dreams and anguished legacy of the Great Migration…Mathis writes with blazing insight into the complexities of sexuality, marriage, family relationships, backbone, fraudulence, and racism in a molten novel of lives racked with suffering yet suffused with beauty.”

—Donna Seaman, Booklist (starred)

“Remarkable…Mathis weaves this story with confidence, proving herself a gifted and powerful writer.”

—Publishers Weekly (starred)

“Cutting, emotional…pure heartbreak…though Mathis has inherited some of Toni Morrison’s poetic intonation, her own prose is appealingly earthbound and plainspoken, and the book’s structure is ingenious…an excellent debut.”

—Kirkus Reviews (starred)

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Pandemic Daniel Kalla

Pandemic Daniel Kalla

Overview:

Right now, in a remote corner of rural China, a farmer and his family are sharing their water supply with their livestock: chickens, ducks, pigs, sheep. They share the same waste-disposal system, too.

Bird viruses meet their human counterparts in the bloodstreams of the swine, where they mix and mutate before spreading back into the human population. And a new flu is born....

Dr. Noah Haldane, of the World Health Organization, knows that humanity is overdue for a new killer flu, like the great influenza pandemic of 1919 that killed more than twenty million people in less than four months. So when a mysterious new strain of flu is reported in the Gansu Province of mainland China, WHO immediately sends a team to investigate.

Haldane and his colleagues soon discover that the new disease, dubbed Acute Respiratory Collapse Syndrome, is far more deadly than SARS, killing one in four victims, regardless of their age or health. But even as WHO struggles to contain the outbreak, ARCS is already spreading to Hong Kong, London, and even America.

In an age when every single person in the world is connected by three commercial flights or fewer, a killer bug can travel much faster than the flu of 1919.

Especially when someone is spreading the virus on purpose...

“Daniel Kalla expertly weaves real science and medicine into a fast-paced, nightmarish thriller--a thriller all the more frightening because it could really happen.”--Tess Gerritsen, author of Body Double on Pandemic

“Kalla is a rocket ship of a writer. He moves to the front of the pack with a thriller that will grab you from page one and never let you go.”--Keith Ablow, author of Psychopath on Pandemic

“Pandemic is fast, fierce and frightening. Kalla delivers a shot of adrenaline in a medical thriller that really thrills.”--Don Winslow, author of California Fire and The Life and Death of BobbyZ on Pandemic

“Pandemic is a totally compelling novel, one of those rare thrillers that lays out a scenario that is not only possible, but terrifyingly probable.”--Douglas Preston, author of Relic and The Codex on Pandemic

“At last! A new thriller writer worthy to join the Ludlum, DeMille, LeCarre club.  Not just a great read, a real treat.”--Beverly Swerling, author of City of Dreams: A Novel of Nieuw Amsterdam and Early Manhattan on Pandemic

“Pandemic is a sizzler. A killer epidemic that may go global--convincing and terrifying.”--Barbara D’Amato, author of Death of A Thousand Cuts and White Male Infantp0 on Pandemic

"Daniel Kalla expertly weaves real science and medicine into a fast-paced, nightmarish thriller--a thriller all the more frightening because it could really happen." (Tess Gerritsen, author of Body Double )

"Kalla is a rocket ship of a writer. He moves to the front of the pack with a thriller that will grab you from page one and never let you go." (Keith Ablow, author of Psychopath )

"Pandemic is fast, fierce and frightening. Kalla delivers a shot of adrenaline in a medical thriller that really thrills." (Don Winslow, author of California Fire )

"Pandemic is a totally compelling novel, one of those rare thrillers that lays out a scenario that is not only possible, but terrifyingly probable." (Douglas Preston, author of Relic and The Codex )

"At last! A new thriller writer worthy to join the Ludlum, DeMille, LeCarre club. Not just a great read, a real treat." (Beverly Swerling, author of City of Dreams )

"Pandemic is a sizzler. A killer epidemic that may go global--convincing and terrifying." (Barbara D'Amato, author of Death of A Thousand Cuts )

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The Enemy Within Michael Dean

The Enemy Within  Michael Dean

Overview:

1941.

Amsterdam’s Jewish Quarter.

More than four hundred young Jewish men have been taken hostage in revenge for the death of a German policeman.

The Jewish resistance group - the knokploegen - is fighting back and the Christian population has gone on strike in their defence.

And Hans-Max Hirschfeld will have to make a fatal choice.

As the Dutch Secretary General for Trade and Industry he is working closely with the Germans, but as a Jew he is also trying his best to help the civilian population.

Hirschfeld’s nephew, Manny, has joined the Dutch resistance. When he discovers Manny’s plans to blow up the German cruiser Arminius, Hirschfeld knows he has to stop him in order to save any more Dutch Jews from being taken hostage, and ultimately killed.

But with brother pitted against brother, and man spying on man, how can Hirschfeld stop the resistance without being branded a traitor himself?

And how can he save the shipyard from sabotage without putting his nephew’s life in danger?

As Hirschfeld becomes more and more embroiled in the plot he discovers that compromising with evil can have terrible consequences, and must learn to wrestle with The Enemy Within…

"A gripping story or war and moral choices, rich in drama and historical detail." - Robert Foster, best-selling author of 'The Lunar Code'.

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Wars of the Roses: Stormbird Conn Iggulden

Wars of the Roses: Stormbird  Conn Iggulden

Overview:

Wars of the Roses: the brand new historical series from Conn Iggulden - internationally best-selling author of the Emperor and Conqueror series.

King Henry V - the great Lion of England - is long dead.

In 1437, after years of regency, the pious and gentle Henry VI, the Lamb, comes of age and accedes to the English throne. His poor health and frailty of mind render him a weakling king -Henry depends on his closest men, Spymaster Derry Brewer and William de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk, to run his kingdom.

Yet there are those, such as the Plantagenet Richard, Duke of York, who believe England must be led by a strong king if she is to survive. With England's territories in France under threat, and rumours of revolt at home, fears grow that Henry and his advisers will see the country slide into ruin. With a secret deal struck for Henry to marry a young French noblewoman, Margaret of Anjou, those fears become all too real.

As storm clouds gather over England, King Henry and his supporters find themselves besieged abroad and at home. Who, or what can save the kingdom before it is too late?

'This is energetic, competent stuff; Iggulden knows his material and his audience' Independent 'A thrilling journey, rippingly told . . . Iggulden's most satisfying to date' Telegraph 'Iggulden is in a class of his own when it comes to epic, historical fiction' Daily Mirror 'Iggulden...tells an absolutely cracking story' The Times

Conn Iggulden is the author of the best-selling Emperor and Conqueror historical fiction series and also the co-author (with his brother Hal), of 2006's British Book of The Year, The Dangerous Book for Boys.

Born in London, Conn Iggulden read English at London University and worked as a teacher for seven years before becoming a full time writer. He is married and lives in Hertfordshire with his wife and children.

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