Book picks similar to
The Ancient Hours by Michael Bible
fiction
novellas
nyt-book-review
historical-fiction
A Pressing Engagement
Anna Lee Huber - 2016
Scotland, 1831. With her wedding to fellow investigator Sebastian Gage only a day away, Kiera is counting down the hours. But just when matrimonial jitters threaten to consume her, Kiera receives a welcome distraction in the form of a mysterious gold necklace. The Celtic torc, thought missing for decades, was directly involved in a recent investigation. Now, Kiera feels compelled to uncover the truth behind its sudden reappearance. But with an overwhelming flock of wedding guests, a muddled cat, an unpaid favor, and a ferocious storm throwing things into disarray, it’s anyone’s guess whether Kiera and Gage will actually make it to the altar... Includes an exclusive preview of the next Lady Darby Mystery, As Death Draws Near.
Angels and Insects
A.S. Byatt - 1992
Byatt returns to the territory she explored in Possession: the landscape of Victorian England, where science and spiritualism are both popular manias, and domestic decorum coexists with brutality and perversion. Angels and Insects is "delicate and confidently ironic.... Byatt perfectly blends laughter and sympathy [with] extraordinary sensuality" (San Francisco Examiner).
Nightwoods
Charles Frazier - 2011
Now, with his brilliant portrait of Luce, a young woman who inherits her murdered sister's troubled twins, Frazier has created his most memorable heroine.Before the children, Luce was content with the reimbursements of the rich Appalachian landscape, choosing to live apart from the small community around her. But the coming of the children changes everything, cracking open her solitary life in difficult, hopeful, dangerous ways.Charles Frazier is known for his historical literary odysseys, and for making figures in the past come vividly to life. Set in the twentieth century, Nightwoods resonates with the timelessness of a great work of art.
In One Person
John Irving - 2012
Billy, the bisexual narrator and main character of In One Person, tells the tragicomic story (lasting more than half a century) of his life as a "sexual suspect," a phrase first used by John Irving in 1978 in his landmark novel of "terminal cases," The World According to Garp.In One Person is a poignant tribute to Billy’s friends and lovers—a theatrical cast of characters who defy category and convention. Not least, In One Person is an intimate and unforgettable portrait of the solitariness of a bisexual man who is dedicated to making himself "worthwhile.
Star
Yukio Mishima - 1961
And he likes it, mostly. His fans cheer from a roped-off section, screaming and yelling to attract his attention—they would kill for a moment alone with him. Finally the director sets up the shot, the camera begins to roll, someone yells “action”; Rikio, for a moment, transforms into another being, a hardened young yakuza, but as soon as the shot is finished, he slumps back into his own anxieties and obsessions.Being a star, constantly performing, being watched and scrutinized as if under a microscope, is often a drag. But so is life. Written shortly after Yukio Mishima himself had acted in the film “Afraid to Die,” this novella is a rich and unflinching psychological portrait of a celebrity coming apart at the seams. With exquisite, vivid prose, Star begs the question: is there any escape from how we are seen by others?
The Girls
Emma Cline - 2016
At the start of summer, a lonely and thoughtful teenager, Evie Boyd, sees a group of girls in the park, and is immediately caught by their freedom, their careless dress, their dangerous aura of abandon. Soon, Evie is in thrall to Suzanne, a mesmerizing older girl, and is drawn into the circle of a soon-to-be infamous cult and the man who is its charismatic leader. Hidden in the hills, their sprawling ranch is eerie and run down, but to Evie, it is exotic, thrilling, charged—a place where she feels desperate to be accepted. As she spends more time away from her mother and the rhythms of her daily life, and as her obsession with Suzanne intensifies, Evie does not realize she is coming closer and closer to unthinkable violence, and to that moment in a girl’s life when everything can go horribly wrong.
Telling the Bees
Peggy Hesketh - 2013
Into his tightly repressed existence bursts a brash young neighbour, whose vivacity and boldness begin to transform his life. Yet years pass by, feelings are repressed, opportunities missed. Until one day - led by a trail of bees - Albert discovers her body and is plunged back into his memories, where he must finally confront the lies and secrets that led to their estrangement. In doing so he unearths the truth of Claire’s murder – a question not so much of who but why.
Neanderthal Seeks (Extra) Yarns
Penny Reid - 2018
Includes:**Janie and Quinn**-Deleted (love) Scene from 'Neanderthal Seeks Human' (new)-Interview with Janie and Quinn (shared on a blog 2014)-Short entitled, 'Neanderthal Seeks Honeymoon' (shared in 'Scenes from the City,' free or $.99 limited release 2015)-Short entitled, 'Neanderthal Seeks Baby, part 1' (shared in newsletter 2016)-Short entitled, 'Neanderthal Seeks Baby, part 2' (shared in newsletter 2017) **Elizabeth and Nico**-Deleted Scene from 'Friends Without Benefits,' Original Opening (new)-Deleted Scene from 'Friends Without Benefits,' Not so nice Nico (new)-Deleted Scene from 'Friends Without Benefits,' Hunting an Elk (new)-Deleted Scene from 'Friends Without Benefits,' Original Confrontation (new)-Short entitled, 'Most-Definitely-With Benefits' (shared in 'Scenes from the City,' free or $.99 limited release 2015) **Sandra and Alex**-Short entitled, 'Hacking the Hacker' (shared in 'Scenes from the City,' free or $.99 limited release 2015)-Short entitled, 'The Junior Hackers Society' (new) **Ashley and Drew**-Deleted Scene from 'Beauty and the Mustache' Furry Purse (shared on a blog 2014)-Deleted Scene from 'Beauty and the Mustache' Eavesdropping (shared on a blog 2014)-Short entitled, 'A Winston Christmas' (shared in newsletter 2015)-Short entitled, 'Beauty and the Beard' (shared in 'Scenes from the City,' free or $.99 limited release 2015) **Fiona and Greg**-Deleted Scene from 'Ninja at First Sight' Greg's Point of View (new)-Extra feature, Greg's Valentine's letter to Fiona (shared on a blog 2016) **Marie and Matt**-Short entitled, 'Dirty Talk is for Parties' (shared on a blog 2017) **Kat and Dan**-Extra feature, Dan's Creative Curse Words (new)-Novella entitled, 'Scenes from the Hallway' (shared 2018, free limited release)-Extra feature, Dan's Valentines Letter to Kat (shared on a blog 2018)-Deleted Scene from 'Marriage of Inconvenience' Crying Material (shared on a blog 2018)-Deleted Scene from 'Marriage of Inconvenience' Astronaut Specialist (new)
Your Duck Is My Duck: Stories
Deborah Eisenberg - 2013
With her own inexorable but utterly unpredictable logic and her almost uncanny ability to conjure the strange states of mind and emotion that constitute our daily consciousness, Eisenberg pulls us as if by gossamer threads through her characters—a tormented woman whose face determines her destiny; a group of film actors shocked to read a book about their past; a privileged young man who unexpectedly falls into a love affair with a human rights worker caught up in an all-consuming quest that he doesn't understand.In Eisenberg’s world, the forces of money, sex, and power cannot be escaped, and the force of history, whether confronted or denied, cannot be evaded. No one writes better about time, tragedy and grief, and the indifferent but beautiful universe around us.
Forever Wild
K.A. Tucker - 2020
Jonah is bracing himself for two weeks with a stepfather he loathes, and while Calla is looking forward to her mother and Simon’s arrival, she dreads the continued pressure to set a date for their wedding…in Toronto. Add in one bullheaded neighbor’s unintentional meddling and another cantankerous neighbor’s own family strife, and Christmas in Trapper’s Crossing will be anything but simple.
Lady Susan
Jane Austen - 1871
A magnificently crafted novel of Regency manners and mores that will delight Austen enthusiasts with its wit and elegant expression.
The Diving Pool: Three Novellas
Yōko Ogawa - 1990
A lonely teenage girl falls in love with her foster brother as she watches him leap from a high diving board into a pool—a peculiar infatuation that sends unexpected ripples through her life. A young woman records the daily moods of her pregnant sister in a diary, taking meticulous note of a pregnancy that may or may not be a hallucination—but whose hallucination is it, hers or her sister's? A woman nostalgically visits her old college dormitory on the outskirts of Tokyo, a boarding house run by a mysterious triple amputee with one leg.Hauntingly spare, beautiful, and twisted, The Diving Pool is a disquieting and at times darkly humorous collection of novellas about normal people who suddenly discover their own dark possibilities.
The Tumor
John Grisham - 2015
In this short book, he provides readers with a fictional account of how a real, new medical technology could revolutionize the future of medicine by curing with sound. THE TUMOR follows the present day experience of the fictional patient Paul, an otherwise healthy 35-year-old father who is diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. Grisham takes readers through a detailed account of Paul’s treatment and his family’s experience that doesn’t end as we would hope. Grisham then explores an alternate future, where Paul is diagnosed with the same brain tumor at the same age, but in the year 2025, when a treatment called focused ultrasound is able to extend his life expectancy. Focused ultrasound has the potential to treat not just brain tumors, but many other disorders, including Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, hypertension, and prostate, breast and pancreatic cancer. For more information, you can visit The Focused Ultrasound Foundation’s website. Here you will find a video of Grisham on the TEDx stage with the Foundation’s chairman and a Parkinson’s patient who brings the audience to its feet sharing her incredible story of a focused ultrasound “miracle.” Readers will get a taste of the narrative they expect from Grisham, but this short book will also educate and inspire people to be hopeful about the future of medical innovation.
The Story of My Teeth
Valeria Luiselli - 2013
But I'm grateful for that inauspicious start because ugliness, as my other uncle, Eurípides López Sánchez, was given to saying, is character forming.Highway is a late-in-life world traveler, yarn spinner, collector, and legendary auctioneer. His most precious possessions are the teeth of the "notorious infamous" like Plato, Petrarch, and Virginia Woolf. Written in collaboration with the workers at a Jumex juice factory, Teeth is an elegant, witty, exhilarating romp through the industrial suburbs of Mexico City and Luiselli's own literary influences.