The semiautobiographical story of an impoverished seaman who pursues, obsessively and aggressively, dreams of education and literary fame.

The Bell Jar is the only novel written by the American writer and poet Sylvia Plath. Originally published under the pseudonym "Victoria Lucas" in 1963, the novel is semi-autobiographical, with the names of places and people changed.

In this climactic volume of A Dance to the Music of Time, Nick Jenkins describes a world of ambition, intrigue, and dissolution. England has won the war, but now the losses, physical and moral, must be counted. Pamela Widmerpool sets a snare for the young writer Trapnel, while her husband suffers private agony and public humiliation. Set against a background of politics, business, high society, and the counterculture in England and Europe, this magnificent...

"...On Christmas Eve 2012, in Paris, the novelist Édouard Louis was raped and almost murdered by a man he had just met. This act of violence left Louis shattered; its aftermath made him a stranger to himself and sent him back to the village, the family, and the past he had sworn to leave behind. A bestseller in France; challenged and vindicated in the courts; History of Violence is a short nonfiction novel in the tradition of Truman Capote's In...

An extraordinary debut novel, Freshwater explores the surreal experience of having a fractured self. It centers around a young Nigerian woman, Ada, who develops separate selves within her as a result of being born "with one foot on the other side." Unsettling, heartwrenching, dark, and powerful, Freshwater is a sharp evocation of a rare way of experiencing the world, one that illuminates how we all construct our identities. Ada begins her life in...

The author has always had a special affinity for Christmas. His celebrated National Public Radio debut, The Santa Land Diaries, which first appeared in print in Barrel Fever was hailed the Seattle Times. The New York Times also wrote of this book. Now The Santa Land Diaries & five other hilarious Christmas stories are available in a wonderfully subversive holiday gift package. For anyone who has had enough of the forced good cheer, family madness,...

Sherman Alexie’s celebrated first collection, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, established its author as one of America’s most important and provocative voices. The basis for the award-winning movie Smoke Signals, it remains one of his best loved and widely praised books twenty years after its initial publication. Vividly weaving memory, fantasy, and stark reality to paint a portrait of life in and around the Spokane Indian reservation,...

"Nine years before the events of the #1 international bestseller The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen, 83 1/4 Years Old, Hendrik and his best friend Evert embark on a madcap adventure -- with an unexpected guest. Hendrik Groen and Evert Duiker, faithful friends in good and bad times, are well over seventy and their lives have quieted down. They see each other once a week to play chess, have a drink, and grab a bite to eat while reflecting on life. But...

While political change hums in the background, Wiola looks back on her youth in a close-knit agricultural community in 1980s Poland: the superstitions of the village women, rumored visits from the Pope, and the locked room in the dressmaker's house.

"In the wake of Hilary Mantel's brilliant conclusion to her award-winning Wolf Hall trilogy, this collection of loosely autobiographical stories locates the transforming moments of a haunted childhood. Sharp and funny, these drawn-from-life stories begin in the 1950s in an insular northern village "scoured by bitter winds and rough gossip tongues." For the child narrator, the only way to survive is to get up, get on, get out. In "King Billy Is a Gentleman,"...