In this enormously entertaining first novel, a lovable, stressed-out guy nicknamed Mumbles tells the story of how he and his cohorts not only struggle to survive corporate purgatory, but also find satisfying ways to strike back at the system. Fueled by a constant flow of Starbucks coffee, Mumbles and his friends take on such tasks as secretly filming a despised colleague's boardroom romp with an assistant, creating footage they plan to broadcast at the company's holiday party. But true gratification comes only when they actually start standing up to the bank's evil minions, those who have no qualms about piling on a weekend's worth of work on a Friday afternoon. With sharp comedy, episodes of inspired hijinks, and its glimpse into a world of fleeting elevator romances and not-so-infrequent nervous breakdowns, Bank is a touching and lively novel that is, at its heart, about figuring out what really matters in life.

    Two directors take drastic measures to make their movie-making dreams come true: one sells his soul to the devil, the other to God.

    She is the only white woman in a land owned by the local Ingalik tribe; her closest neighbor is a fellow bush pilot and activist named Kash. Bailey and Kash are drawn to each other, but their fiercely independent natures keep them apart. When two Easterners hire Bailey to pilot them into the bush, a series of events is set in motion that will upset the delicate racial balance of the land and lead to violence. As the truth behind the couple's arrival becomes apparent, the refuge Bailey has created for herself shatters. Forced to face the demons of her unresolved past, she is given a chance to free herself at last from the secret that haunts her.  Marked by spare, resonant prose and imbued with an indelible sense of place, True North tells a powerful story of adventure and survival. It is a welcome debut by a gifted new voice in literary fiction.

    Wall Street speculators, the Manhattan downtown club scene, Russian gangsters, immigrant neighborhoods - all the elements in the urban turf of this finely crafted contemporary crime novel wed danger with excitement and possibility. They're the rewards that Monty Brogan, who stands at the center of the moral glare in this tale, has already lost, just as he's lost his Corvette, and the "sway" that opened the doors of exclusive night spots and guaranteed him courtside seats at Madison Square Garden. Tomorrow Monty's traveling by bus, to the federal prison in Otisville, for seven years. He's afraid, and all he'd ever really wanted when he grew up was to be a fireman. With the pulse of the city in its prose, this debut novel follows Monty through the twenty-four hours of his last day out. At the same time, it illuminates the worlds, and souls, of his two best friends: Frank Slattery, an edgy bond trader who gambles daily with financial ruin, and Jakob Elinsky, an English teacher who clings to illusions as he compromises his ideals. Friends since their high school days, the three of them nostalgically share a past, but warily they confront a future that can no longer accommodate their adolescent dreams. They meet. They drink, and talk, go clubbing, dance, drink, and remember. What neither Slattery nor Jakob know, however, is that Monty has a plan. It's a shocker.Originally published: New York: Carroll & Graf Pub., 2000.

    Avery was tried for the murder of a twenty-nine-year-old mill worker, Sarah Marie Cornell. It was the first time a clergyman had ever been tried for murder in the United States and the first time an American murder trial became headline news. From this factual base, Mary Cable weaves a chilling novel of gothic desires and conflicting classes. She creates a rich atmosphere to show New England as it was then - simple, puritanical, superstitious, and unsentimental - on the brink of emerging from the eighteenth century into an industrial and far-more-complicated age. This dramatic, compelling story is as much about a time and place as it is about a notorious murder trial. A work of poetic intensity, Avery’s Knot is finally a classic, tragic tale of a woman caught between passion and puritanism.

    

    

    Peter Serafinowicz's Questions and Answers is a showcase for the razor wit and joyful nonsense of one of Britain's cleverest comedians, firing back genuinely funny instant replies to a stream of questions from the general public. This book collects together several hundred jokes from Peter's store of one-liners in a stylish, faux-Victorian, gifty hardback, just in time for Christmas. 'Peter Serafinowicz is hilarious' David Walliams' 'It's funny, but Peter Serafinowicz is the kind of funny person that funny people find funny' Simon Pegg 'Peter Serafinowicz is one of the funniest women in the world' Derren Brown

    Two fallen angels (Matt Damon and Ben Affleck), sentenced to eternal exile in Wisconsin, are trying to get back into heaven. A renegade cardinal in New Jersey (George Carlin), as part of his "Catholicism Wow!" campaign, has opened a loophole in Catholic doctrine that would give them their opportunity-and, in proving God's judgment wrong, destroy the universe. An abortion clinic counselor (Linda Fiorentino) who may or may not be of holy bloodlines is tapped as the very reluctant savior-and, accompanied by the thirteenth apostle (Chris Rock), a wayward muse (Salma Hayek), and two very questionable prophets (Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith, AKA Jay and Silent Bob), she sets off on a mission to save the world.

    Only Alison is now desperately ill and she needs Fran's help. She wants to find her husband a new wife, and leave her young daughter with a new mother. Fran finds the whole idea deeply uncomfortable, but it's hard to refuse your closest friend at the best of times, let alone ignore her dying wishes.So Fran reluctantly logs on to an internet dating site, where she stumbles across a startlingly familiar profile. 'Footloose' describes himself as divorced, but his photo looks exactly like Fran's husband, Max. What's a wife to do when she suspects her husband's cheating and can't bear to confront him outright? Posing as 'Sassy', Fran sends a reply to 'Footloose' and sets out to date her own husband... But this increasingly crazy plan leads Max to start to have doubts of his own. Torn between suspicion and love, life for Fran just got very complicated - can her marriage survive?

     Suzanne and Gertrude is a tale of intermittent griefs and wonderments. How do we live, not just with each other, but with memories, with impermanence, with the inevitable melancholy of being?   Suzanne and Gertrude is a spare novel with a profound impact.

    But success does not mean he feels like a man. On vacation in Jamaica with his mistress, an ice queen who considers him her personal trophy, his thoughts are back in New York City, with a beautiful young girl he met a few days before he left town. As the stress bears down on him, the brilliant playwright goes nearly to pieces before he finds his salvation under water. On his first deep-sea dive, Grant falls in love with the haunting beauty of the reef. He returns as soon as he can, staying longer and swimming deeper until all his problems seep away. But a man can’t breathe underwater forever—and his obsession will drive him to take increasing risks that will change his life forever.

    Photographs.

    Mattie Sylvester, a widow of one of America's most celebrated painters, reveals the sordid truth of the past, and of her husband, to her secretary.

    There are strange, and unrecognizable markings on the canister. How did it get there, and where did it come from? It is sent back to a research center in the U.S. where it is opened in an environmentally controlled room. Inside are six human embryos, and even more shocking is the discovery that the embryos are viable. Should they be brought to term? Terminal Event tells the intriguing story of who the embryos are, where they came from, and how they spent 100 million years waiting to be discovered.