This is writer/actor/director Albert Brooks’ “real story of what happens to America” (as the novel’s subtitle indicates). Lifespans have been extended through the eradication of cancer and the population of the United States is huge, tilted toward “the olds,” and straining the resources and future of youth. And then Los Angeles disintegrates in an earthquake, providing the opportunity for an…
Translated from the French and set in Paris, this novel takes place on 20 May, the exact date a soothsaying fortune-teller told Mathilde there would come a (much-needed) change in her life. Mathilde feels herself disintegrating. Her boss has turned on her and has been making her job and her life unendurable for months and months. Physician…
Wow! This book begins, surprisingly, at “Chapter Thirty-One” and as you read along, you think you know why. As you read along, you’re enveloped in the tale of this man whose life has fallen apart after unforgivable dalliances on his part. He’s lost his wife. He’s lost his child. He’s homeless. Then after chapters 1-30, 31-Fifty-Three…
Impossible you say? Not so. Beginning with Hemingway’s (apocryphal “For sale : baby shoes, never worn.“), there’s a history of pared-down storytelling (“from novel to novella to novelette, short story, sudden fiction, flash fiction, micro fiction, drabble [exactly 100 words], dribble [50]”). Take a look– a quick look!– at these.
A compelling story that begins on a barrier island in 1813, as we are introduced to Theodosia Burr, the daughter of the notorious Aaron Burr. We forward one hundred and fifty years to meet the last three inhabitants of this island. This Southern author, Michael Parker, paints a colorful picture and tells a haunting tale. …
In this inventive first novel, newcomer Biti Namoeteri encounters America through a variety of texts which introduce him to the American Way of Life and the American (rags-to-riches (to rags)) Dream.
If you want to get into the true holiday spirit before sitting down to your Thanksgiving feast, read Hugh Nissenson’s The Pilgrim— yes, those pilgrims. Of Plymouth. The novel is a hard look at the hardships the colony (and, for that matter, all who lived in the 1600s) endured (told convincingly in a period first-person voice). It will…
This biography is both irreverent and reverential, if that’s possible. In it, Karen Karbo examines how Georgia O’Keeffe lived (and examined) her life & shares her observations as a guideline to living, creating, one’s own unique (eccentric and true to the self) life.
After a severe bullying incident involving the daughter and a divorce from a bullying husband, Shelley and her mother resettle in a new home where they hope to live peacefully– though Shelley thinks that they are retreating and meek as mice. When their briefly idyllic cottage is broken into and they are once again harrassed, their lives and…
17 year-old Kai rescued a battered mutt just hours before the dog was to be euthanized. Two years later, Kai tries to rescue the beloved pet who has become Talia when she falls through ice into the river. This time both boy and dog lose their lives. In the hours following, members of the large seach party,…