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Paul Auster: Moon Palace


Wolfgang Hallet - 2008
    In an exemplary interpretation of the novel, this volume integrates theoretical concepts from narrotology, visual culture and cultural history into a close reading of the aesthetic and structural features of the novel. Interpretative insight into a postmodern novel is thus combined with the provision of transferable conceptual knowledge.

My Name Is Lucy Barton: A Novel by Elizabeth Strout | Summary & Highlights


Summary Reads - 2016
    Her mother comes to visit and through conversations with her and a recollection of her past she starts to reflect on her childhood and its affects on her present life. In “My Name is Lucy Barton” the reader gets a glimpse into the past and gains insight into the complicated relationship between a mother and her daughter. After not talking to her mother for years, she is finally reunited when her mother visits her in the hospital. The exploration through their relationship lends unexpected vision into all other relationships in Lucy’s life; her relationship with her husband, daughters, neighbors and family friends. Through this telling narrative one can gather the notion of a past’s affects on their present and their telling of “their” story. “My Name is Lucy Barton” is the thought-provoking tale of a woman discovering herself, her mother, her husband, her children, and the world around her. Inside this SUMMARY READS Summary & Highlights of My Name Is Lucy Barton: Summary of Each Chapter Highlights BONUS: Free Report about The Tidiest and Messiest Places on Earth - http://sixfigureteen.com/messy.

Six Shorts 2017: The finalists for the 2017 Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award


Kathleen Alcott - 2017
    Past winners and shortlisted authors have included the Pulitzer winners Junot Díaz, Anthony Doerr and Adam Johnson, plus Hilary Mantel, Ali Smith, Yiyun Li, CK Stead and Elizabeth Strout.Six Shorts 2017 brings together the six stories shortlisted for this year's award: ‘Reputation Management’ by Kathleen Alcott; ‘Half of What Atlee Rouse Knows about Horses’ by Bret Anthony Johnston; ‘The Hazel Twig and the Olive Tree’ by Richard Lambert; ‘The Tenant’ by Victor Lodato; ‘Every Little Thing’ by Celeste Ng; and ‘Mr Salary’ by Sally Rooney.Chosen by a hugely experienced and prestigious judging panel that included Booker-winner Anne Enright, Orange- and Whitbread-winner Rose Tremain, Booker-shortlistee Neel Mukherjee and critic and novelist Mark Lawson, the six stories represent the very best in contemporary English-language short fiction.

The Devil is a Black Dog: Stories from the Middle East and Beyond


Sándor Jászberényi - 2013
    Characters contemplate the meaning of home, love, despair, family, and friendship against the backdrop of brutality. From Cairo to the Gaza Strip, from Benghazi to Budapest, religious men have their faith challenged, and people under the duress of war or traumatic personal memories deal with the feelings that emerge. Often they seem to suppress these feelings . . . but, no, not quite.  Set in countries the author has reported from or lived in, these stories are all told from different perspectives, but always with the individual at the center: the mother, the soldier, the martyr, the religious man, the journalist, and so on. They form a kaleidoscope of miniworlds, of moments, of decisions that together put a face, an emotion, a thought behind humans who confront war and conflict. Although they are fiction, they could have all happened exactly as they are told. Each story leaves a powerful visual image, an unforgettable image you conjure up again and again.  Jászberényi is able to do all this so convincingly, in part, because he himself is not a "helicopter journalist" but rather lives in a residential Cairo neighborhood. He is, moreover, from a corner of Eastern Europe where cynicism almost equates with survival, and yet his writing evinces not only wry humor but great sensitivity and a profound sense of beauty. He speaks Arabic (in addition to English and his native Hungarian) and immerses himself in the society he reports on. But, in doing so, he still remains a reporter, and as such the stories are approached with the clinical, observant eye of an outsider. Whether addressing the contradictions of international humanitarian work or the moral dilemmas faced by those who seek to improve the health and lives of women and girls, he does so in a singularly provocative and yet intelligent manner.

Life


Lu Yao - 1982
    Against the vivid, gritty backdrop of 1980s China, Lu Yao traces the proud and passionate Gao Jialin’s difficult path to professional, romantic, and personal fulfillment—or at least hard-won acceptance.With the emotional acuity and narrative mastery that secured his reputation as one of China’s great novelists, Lu Yao paints a vivid, emotional, and unsparing portrait of contemporary Chinese life, seen through the eyes of a working-class man who refuses to be broken.

Rich Girl Problems (Millionaire Wives Club)


Tu-Shonda L. Whitaker - 2013
    Whitaker's Millionaire Wives Club are back for a third season of explosive lies, forbidden sex, and scandals like you've never seen before!Step into the world of cable TV's hit reality show and meet new bride and new mother Milan, who finally has everything she's ever dreamed of. Problem is her perfect life doesn't work for TV. What will she do when the producer threatens to fire her? Editor-in-chief Chaunci isn't feeling the fame and the last thing she needs is to share the spotlight with her worst enemy, newcomer Journee. Socialite Journee expected her eighty-two-year-old husband to only live four days past their wedding night, but it's been four years. And just when it seems that he's ready to meet his maker, his son--Journee's ex-lover--shows up. Hair care mogul Vera is struggling with her failing marriage and the last thing she needs is her drug-addicted mother to further ruin her life or her image. Jaise is finally standing by her man. But will she live the life she thinks or will it cost her everything?

The Rain Ascends


Joy Kogawa - 1995
    Originally published to critical acclaim in 1995, The Rain Ascends has been revisited by the author, with substantive additions to the end of the narrative that bring to fruition the heroine's struggle for forgiveness and redemption.As a middle-aged mother, Millicent is confronted with the secrets of her father's past as she recalls certain events in her childhood-a childhood that, on the surface, was a blissful one. Disbelief turns to confusion as she faces up to the sins of her father and wrestles with a legacy of lies, silence and her own embattled conscience.In The Rain Ascends, Joy Kogawa beautifully sifts the truth from the past and the sinner from the perceived saint. The result is a sensitive, poetic, yet searing depiction of the wounds left by abuse and the redemption brought by truth.

Dead Secret


Catherine Deveney - 2013
    It was the moment I watched Daddy die. Everything began to unravel then.’ When their father dies of a sudden heart attack, sisters Rebecca and Sarah Connaghan set aside their differences and return to the family home in Glasgow. Then Rebecca finds letters between her father and the mother she barely remembers that cast doubt on everything she’s been told about her family. Reeling from confusion and grief, she sets off alone for the remote Highlands village that may hold the key to the past. Above all, she is determined to prove the innocence of her father – the beloved, silent man she once thought she knew, now accused of a terrible crime.

The Icicle


Carolyn Marie Castagna - 2022
    Illustrator and writer's Carolyn Marie Castagna's first shared short story.A small icicle hanging from a roof peers inside a window at a small reading room, and learns about magical human qualities, and the importance of the one most special human feeling.

Ghachar Ghochar


Vivek Shanbhag - 2013
    As they move from a cramped, ant-infested shack to a larger house on the other side of Bangalore, and try to adjust to a new way of life, the family dynamic begins to shift. Allegiances realign; marriages are arranged and begin to falter; and conflict brews ominously in the background. Things become “ghachar ghochar”—a nonsense phrase uttered by one meaning something tangled beyond repair, a knot that can't be untied. Elegantly written and punctuated by moments of unexpected warmth and humor, Ghachar Ghochar is a quietly enthralling, deeply unsettling novel about the shifting meanings—and consequences—of financial gain in contemporary India.

Carver Country - The World Of Raymond Carver


Bob Adelman - 1990
    Carver Country presents the stark but human reality of one man's world, a man who was generous in his spirit and in his gifts, and who rose above his beginnings - but Raymond Carver never left his native ground or gave up his love for its terrain and its people. Raymond Carver's gritty texts, including his poems, short stories and unpublished letters, combined with Bob Adelman's photographs of Carver's people and haunts, re-create the world of this major writer, bringing to life the bleak, blue-collar towns, people, and places that became the inspiration for much of his work. Includes 113 duotone photos.

Work


Bud Smith - 2017
    It's about his hilarious blue-collar family. It's about growing up in a campground in NJ, skipping college, and moving to NYC on a drunken whim. It's about making art even if that means writing a novel during 1000 consecutive lunch breaks.

The Moments


Natalie Winter - 2019
    Moments that make us who we are. But what if they don't unfold the way they're supposed to...?What if you get on the wrong bus, or don't speak to the right person at a party, or stay in a job that isn't for you? Will you miss your one chance at happiness? Or will happiness find you eventually, when the moment is right?Meet Matthew and Myrtle. They have never really felt like they fitted - in life or with anyone else. But they are meant to be together - if only they can find each other.A powerful and emotional story about missed chances, interwoven lives and the moments that define us.

A Second Chance


Bryan Mooney - 2012
    She was smart, attractive and well educated. After losing the love of her life she decided she had to get away from it all. Ravenna did what everyone would love to do…, she left and never looked back. She made a comfortable life on a small Greek island paradise nestled in the southern blue Aegean sea. It was filled with friendly people, beautiful beaches and warm sunny days. The strong willed woman thought she had left her life behind her… but she was wrong. Now, torn between memories and guilt, she must decide- but will she get…a second chance?

Dante's Inferno: Translations by Twenty Contemporary Poets


Daniel Halpern - 1994
    No other version has so vividly expressed the horror, cruelty, beauty, and outrageous imaginative flight of Dante's original vision.