D. Salinger's novel, The Catcher in the Rye celebrated its fiftieth anniversary of publication in 2001. The Catcher in the Rye: New Essays presents a variety of new approaches to this extremely popular and intensely influential novel, ranging from the examination of the intertextual relationship between The Catcher in the Rye and Cormac McCarthy's All the Pretty Horses, to the evaluation of Salinger's mythic place in American film and popular culture, to the interrogation of what it means for a reader to claim that a novel such as The Catcher in the Rye has changed his or her life. These essays provide new commentary and new insights, and demonstrate the continuing relevance of Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, and Holden Caulfield to American culture and literature and, in turn, to American cultural and literary studies.

    Pampered socialite Valerie Sterling is shattered by her husband's death and the mysterious loss of her wealth. But she finds within herself the will to build a new life, and rekindles a romance with television network head Nicholas Fielding. Valerie is utterly unaware of the dangerous passions she is stirring up in Sybille Enderby, her childhood friend and daughter of a seamstress on one of Valerie's estates. Clawing her way up in the television industry, Sybille has always longed to possess all that Valerie has. Yet success, marriage, and the glittering whirl of society cannot quench Sybille's envy of her friend...an envy that grows into a powerful obsession: to destroy Valerie.

    Nothing, in short, to signify the deep change that each member of the Harrelson household will undergo. Parents Gene and Helen turn away from each other and look inward, losing themselves in private fantasies. Ten-year-old Crispy devises elaborate strategies for her escape from the suffocating clutch of the Harrelson home and into the waiting arms of pop star Marky Mark.But the heart of this family portrait is younger brother Stephen, who, along with his quirky and creative friend Nicole, crafts an alternative reality in which their comic book hero, Wolf Boy, battles the forces of evil, champions the powers of good, and fights to keep his family intact. Through Wolf Boy, Stephen finds an outlet for his grief and a concrete expression for his place in a family spiraling out of control and for all the natural yearnings and hopes of a typical thirteen-year-old. Wolf Boy’s adventures are featured throughout the book, introducing a graphic-novel subplot that adds humor and visual interest and stretches the limits of the conventional novel.With warmth, humor, hope, and empathy, Evan Kuhlman’s debut novel is truly unforgettable and signals a fresh new voice in today’s fiction.

    A boy looking for a hero, Joey decides to latch on to Charlie Banks, the all-star third basemen for the New York Giants. But Joey's chosen champion doesn't exactly welcome the extreme attention of a persistent young fan with an overactive imagination. Then again, this strange, needy kid might be exactly what Banks needs.

    Along with Clover's stylish, powerful friend, Alice, they share holidays, sleepovers, school runs and childcare. They're like one big family. But all families have their secrets. When the children leave home, Clover and Laura's lives and marriages change forever, and the old rules on love and loyalty no longer apply. And when Alice decides she wants what they've got, Clover and Laura have to find out who they really are. Without the children, can their marriages - and friendship - survive?

    She's the spoiled, sharp-tongued boss's daughter, always looking for a creative way to spice up her boring life. Normally, these two would never meet, but a higher power has different plans for both of them. The major motion picture from 20th Century Fox starring Ewan McGregor, Cameron Diaz and Holly Hunter hits the box office in October.

    Kate Blackwell is one of the richest and most powerful women in the world. She is an enigma, a woman surrounded by a thousand unanswered questions. Her father was a diamond prospector who struck it rich beyond his wildest dreams. Her mother was the daughter of a crooked Afrikaaner merchant. Her conception was itself an act of hate-filled vengeance. At the extravagent celebrations of her ninetieth birthday, there are toasts from a Supreme Court Judge and a telegram from the White House. And for Kate there are ghosts, ghosts of absent friends and of enemies. Ghosts from a life of blackmail and murder. Ghosts from an empire spawned by naked ambition! Sidney Sheldon is one of the most popular storytellers in the world. This is one of his best-loved novels, a compulsively readable thriller, packed with suspense, intrigue and passion. It will recruit a new generation of fans to his writing.

    She now feels a certain freedom -- and also certain restlessness. There have been three significant men in her life -- Peter, her ex-husband; Douglas, a style guru; and Dean, a beautiful younger man -- all of whom have begun to think of Pamela in romantic terms once more. But Pamela wants to get to know herself again and can't quite decide with which of her three suitors (if any) she should take up.

    Sure, the magazine writer may have some issues aside from food, but she isn’t quite ready to face them. Then her beloved uncle Benny falls ill, and Eleanor’s whole world is torn apart. Unlike her sisters, she has neither a husband nor a full-time job, so it’s up to Eleanor to care for her ailing uncle. What at first seems scary and daunting becomes a blessing in disguise. Because while she’s doing all that cooking and nurturing—and enjoying a delicious flirtation with a new chef in town—Eleanor begins to uncover some long-buried secrets about her emotionally frayed family and may finally get the chance to become the woman she’s always wanted to be…

    She's got two mothers, "one deaf-blind and the other four baby steps from flat crazy." She's got two men: a husband who's easing out the back door; and a best friend, who's laying siege to her heart in her front yard. And she has two families: the Fretts, who stole her and raised her right; and the Crabtrees, who won't forget how they were done wrong. Now, in Between, Georgia, a feud that began the night Nonny was born is escalating and threatening to expose family secrets.Ironically, it might be just what the town needs... if only Nonny weren't stuck in between.

    There he raised them in complete isolation without television, computer, radio -- not even a newspaper. Now, at twenty-three, Dorothea leaves in search of her missing brother -- and ventures into the outside world for the first time. Her search becomes an odyssey of discovery when Dorothea meets Stephen Spaulding, a cab driver dealing with his own mysterious history. With him as her guide, Dorothea uncovers the truth of her family's past and the terrifying day that changed her father forever. Together, they have a chance to discover that although a heart can be broken by the tragic events of a day, a day can also bring a new chance at love and a deeper understanding of life's infinite possibilities.

    I had the romantic thing with my first husband, thank you very much, she tells a hapless suitor. I'm thirty-eight years old, and I've got a daughter learning to read and a job I don't quite like. I don't need the violin music. But when the new tenant in her in-law apartment turns out to be Michael Christopher, on the lam after twenty years in a monastery and smack dab in the middle of a dark night of the soul, Rebecca begins to suspect that she is not as thoroughly disillusioned as she had thought.Her daughter, Mary Martha, is delighted with the new arrival, as is Rebecca's mother, Phoebe, a rollicking widow making a new life for herself among the spiritual eccentrics of the coastal town of Bolinas. Even Rebecca's best friend, Bonnie, once a confirmed cynic in matters of the heart, urges Rebecca on. But none of them, Rebecca feels, understands how complicated and dangerous love actually is.As her unlikely friendship with the ex-monk grows toward something deeper, and Michael wrestles with his despair while adjusting to a second career flipping hamburgers at McDonald's, Rebecca struggles with her own temptation to hope. But it is not until she is brought up short by the realities of life and death that she begins to glimpse the real mystery of love, and the unfathomable depths of faith.Beautifully written and playfully engaging, this novel. is about one man wrestling with his yearning for a life of contemplation and the need for a life of action in the world. But it's Rebecca's spirit, as well as her relationships with Mary Martha, Phoebe, her irresponsible surfer ex-husband Rory -- and, of course, the monk downstairs -- that makes this story shine.

    Hazel Hunnicutt's Used World Emporium is a sprawling antique store that is "the station at the end of the line for objects that sometimes appeared tricked into visiting there." Hazel, the proprietor, is in her sixties, and it's a toss-up as to whether she's more attached to her mother or her cats. She's also increasingly attached to her two employees: Claudia Modjeski -- freakishly tall, forty-odd years old -- who might finally be undone by the extreme loneliness that's dogged her all of her life; and Rebekah Shook, pushing thirty, still living in her fervently religious father's home, and carrying the child of the man who recently broke her heart. The three women struggle -- separately and together, through relationships, religion, and work -- to find their place in this world. And it turns out that they are bound to each other not only by the past but also by the future, as not one but two babies enter their lives, turning their formerly used world brand-new again. Astonishing for what it reveals about the human capacity for both grace and mischief, The Used World forms a loose trilogy with Kimmel's two previous novels, The Solace of Leaving Early and Something Rising (Light and Swift). This is a book about all of America by way of a single midwestern town called Jonah, and the actual breathing histories going on as Indiana's stark landscape is transformed by dying small-town centers and proliferating big-box stores and SUVs. It's about generations of deception, anguish, and love, and the idiosyncratic ways spirituality plays out in individual lives. By turns wise and hilarious, tender and fierce, heartrending and inspiring, The Used World charts the many meanings of the place we call home.

    She attempts to forge a relationship with middle-aged, womanizing, Seattle millionaire Ray Porter while being pursued by socially inept and unambitious slacker Jeremy.With more than 340,000 copies in print, Steve Martin's Shopgirl has landed on bestseller lists nationwide including: New York Times, Publishers Weekly, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, San Francisco Chronicle, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times.Filled with the kind of witty, discerning observations that have brought Steve Martin incredible critical success, this story of modern day love and romance is a work of disarming tenderness.

     Alice Marlowe accepts her life the way it is. She is single, in her late forties, lives with a cat named Sampson, and has imaginary conversations with her dead twin brother. As a sign-language interpreter for the deaf, she is used to standing between people, facilitating their conversations with each other. But then a late-night phone call brings a beautiful, scared six-year-old girl into her life. And seeing herself through a child's eyes for the first time, she discovers that love is a universal language.