Book picks similar to
Susan and her Classic Convertible by William E. Butterworth III
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Eggplant Alley
D.M. Cataneo - 2013
Long-haired hippies, racial tension, and the divisive Viet Nam war leave Nicky longing for the good old days. Nicky's complaints and remembrances revolve around the five things that ruined his childhood: the nosebleed he received from President Kennedy; the Great Northeast Blackout (which he thought he caused); the end of neighborhood stickball games; the departure to Viet Nam of his beloved big brother, Roy; and Roy's hippie girlfriend, Margalo. With Roy overseas for a year, Nicky is left behind with two distracted, worried parents. And for him, enough is enough. He decides to do something about the endless downward spiral of events. He decides to lead a crusade to revive neighborhood stickball, which he is sure will spark a return to all that was innocent and beautiful about the good old days. In the course of his year-long quest, Nicky confronts an ancient fortune-teller from the second floor; Willie Mays; his father's deep, dark secret from World War II; neighborhood bullies; and a huge romantic crush on Margalo. Most important is his encounter with Lester Allnuts, a new kid in the building who gives Nicky a fresh outlook on Eggplant Alley, and eventually on life in general. Lester is a country boy with a deep secret, and that secret makes him as eager as Nicky to revive stickball and rejuvenate Eggplant Alley. Working together toward the same goal - for entirely different reasons --- the boys develop a strong friendship. Before the year without Roy is over, Nicky learns Lester's secret --- and realizes the destructiveness of prejudice and fear, and the value of empathy and forgiveness. And he ultimately learns there is something far richer than the good old days: real hope for a better future. D.M.Cataneo is a native New Yorker and a magna cum laude graduate of Boston University's School of Public Communication who worked for 22 years for the Boston Globe and Boston Herald as a reporter, columnist, and editor. He is the author of six non-fiction books. He is currently teaching at the University of New Hampshire and lives in Durham, NH, with his family.
You Are One of Them
Elliott Holt - 2013
Ten years later, Sarah is about to graduate from college when she receives a mysterious letter from Moscow suggesting that Jenny's death might have been a hoax. She sets off to the former Soviet Union in search of the truth, but the more she delves into her personal Cold War history, the harder it is to separate facts from propaganda.You Are One of Them is a taut, moving debut about the ways in which we define ourselves against others and the secrets we keep from those who are closest to us. In her insightful forensic of a mourned friendship, Holt illuminates the long lasting sting of abandonment and the measures we take to bring back those we have lost.
Smack
Melvin Burgess - 1996
Tar has reasons for running away from home that run deep and sour, whereas Gemma, with her middle-class roots firmly on show, has a deep-rooted lust for adventure. Their first hit brings bliss, the next despair.
Dandelion Wine
Ray Bradbury - 1957
A summer of green apple trees, mowed lawns, and new sneakers. Of half-burnt firecrackers, of gathering dandelions, of Grandma's belly-busting dinner. It was a summer of sorrows and marvels and gold-fuzzed bees. A magical, timeless summer in the life of a twelve-year-old boy named Douglas Spaulding—remembered forever by the incomparable Ray Bradbury.Woven into the novel are the following short stories: Illumination, Dandelion Wine, Summer in the Air, Season of Sitting, The Happiness Machine, The Night, The Lawns of Summer, Season of Disbelief, The Last--the Very Last, The Green Machine, The Trolley, Statues, The Window, The Swan, The Whole Town's Sleeping, Goodbye Grandma, The Tarot Witch, Hotter Than Summer, Dinner at Dawn, The Magical Kitchen, Green Wine for Dreaming.
Absalom, Absalom!
William Faulkner - 1936
Although the novel's complex and fragmented structure poses considerable difficulty to readers, the book's literary merits place it squarely in the ranks of America's finest novels. The story concerns Thomas Sutpen, a poor man who finds wealth and then marries into a respectable family. His ambition and extreme need for control bring about his ruin and the ruin of his family. Sutpen's story is told by several narrators, allowing the reader to observe variations in the saga as it is recounted by different speakers. This unusual technique spotlights one of the novel's central questions: To what extent can people know the truth about the past?
Winesburg, Ohio
Sherwood Anderson - 1919
In "Hands," Wing Biddlebaum tries to hide the tale of his banishment from a Pennsylvania town, a tale represented by his hands. In "Adventure," lonely Alice Hindman impulsively walks naked into the night rain. Threaded through the stories is the viewpoint of George Willard, the young newspaper reporter who, like his creator, stands witness to the dark and despairing dealings of a community of isolated people.
The War Between the Tates
Alison Lurie - 1974
Brian Tate and his wife Erica seem to have it all: a strong relationship, beautiful children, good friends and enough money. But when Brian, a middle-aged professor of political science, begins an affair with a female student, the snug fabric of the Tates' lives starts to unravel alarmingly fast.Alison Lurie enters into the worlds of husband, wife, adulteress and child with equal measures of empathy and humour in this richly imagined story of a family breakdown, set in the sharply observed domain of American academia.
Ordinary People
Judith Guest - 1976
Calvin is a determined, successful provider and Beth an organized, efficient wife. They had two sons, Conrad and Buck, but now they have one. In this memorable, moving novel, Judith Guest takes the reader into their lives to share their misunderstandings, pain...and ultimate healing. (back cover)
The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy and Other Stories
Tim Burton - 1997
Now he gives birth to a cast of gruesomely sympathetic children – misunderstood outcasts who struggle to find love and belonging in their cruel, cruel worlds. His lovingly lurid illustrations evoke both the sweetness and the tragedy of these dark yet simple beings – hopeful, hapless heroes who appeal to the ugly outsider in all of us, and let us laugh at a world we have long left behind (mostly anyway).
Six Months to Live: The Dawn Rochelle Series, Book One (Lurlene McDaniel Books: 1)
Lurlene N. McDaniel - 2010
Dawn Rochelle is about to face the toughest fight of her life—a fight she has to win. Otherwise, she has only six months to live.
A Very Keatyn Christmas (The Keatyn Chronicles Book 13)
Jillian Dodd - 2021
And at fifteen, Aubrey Lane Arrington is optimistically hoping that her first kiss will not only happen over the holidays, but that it will also be with her best friend and crush, Branson Johnson. They’ve been friends since they were kids and next fall, she’ll be joining him at Eastbrooke Academy. He’s hinted at their friendship turning into more, but as the holiday season progresses, she’s still stuck in the friend zone. His cousin Beckham Johnson, on the other hand, doesn’t believe in the friend zone. His cocky personality and charisma make him the ultimate flirt, so she’s never taken him seriously. But when he changes his plans to spend New Year’s Eve with her, Lane will have to make a decision. Will her first kiss be with her longtime crush, or will someone new sweep her off her feet?Find out when the clock strikes midnight!
Elegy
Larry Levis - 1997
Levine had years earlier recognized Levis as "the most gifted and determined young poet I have ever had the good fortune to have in one of my classes"; after Levis's death, Levine edited the poems Levis had left behind. What emerged is this haunting collection, Elegy. The poems were written in the six years following publication of his previous book, The Widening Spell of the Leaves, and continue and extend the jazz improvisations on themes that gave those poems their resonance. There are poems of sudden stops and threats from the wild: an opossum halts traffic and snaps at pedestrians in posh west Los Angeles; a migrant worker falls victim to the bites of two beautiful black widow spiders; horses starve during a Russian famine; a thief, sitting in the rigging of Columbus’s ship, contemplates his work in the New World. The collection culminates in the elegies written to a world in which culture fragments; in which the beasts of burden—the horses, the migrant workers—are worked toward death; a world in which "Love's an immigrant, it shows itself in its work. / It works for almost nothing"; a world in which "you were no longer permitted to know, / Or to decide for yourself, / Whether there was an angel inside you, or whether there wasn't."Elegy, as Levine says, was "written by one of our essential poets at the very height of his powers. His early death is a staggering loss for our poetry, but what he left is a major achievement that will enrich our lives."
Galactic Pot-Healer
Philip K. Dick - 1969
Fernwright is a pot-healer - a repairer of ceramics - in a drably utilitarian future where such skills have little value. And the Glimmung? The Glimmung is a being that looks something like a gyroscope, something like a teenaged girl, and something like the contents of an ocean. What's more, it may be divine. And, like certain gods of old Earth, it has a bad temper.What could an omnipresent and seemingly omnipotent entity want with a humble pot-healer? Or with the dozens of other odd creatures it has lured to Plowman's Planet? And if the Glimmung is a god, are its ends positive or malign? Combining quixotic adventure, spine-chilling horror, and deliriously paranoid theology, Galactic Pot-Healer is a uniquely Dickian voyage to alternate worlds of the imagination.