What I Loved begins in New York in 1975, when art historian Leo Hertzberg discovers an extraordinary painting by an unknown artist in a SoHo gallery. He buys the work; tracks down the artist, Bill Wechsler; and the two men embark on a life-long friendship. Leo’s story, which spans twenty-five years, follows the growing involvement between his family and Bill’s–an intricate constellation of attachments that includes the two men, their wives, Erica and Violet, and their sons, Matthew and Mark.
The families live in the same New York apartment building, rent a house together in the summers and keep up a lively exchange of ideas about life and art,
read more
When New York radical lawyer Joel Litvinoff is felled by a stroke, his wife, Audrey, uncovers a secret that forces her to re-examine her ideas about him and their forty-year marriage. Joel’s adult children will soon have to come to terms with this unsettling discovery themselves, but for the meantime, they are grappling with their own dilemmas.
Take Rosa, drawn ineluctably to the faith of Orthodox Judaism, despite her parents’ ferocious disapproval of organized religion. Or Karla, obsessed with her weight and trapped in a stale marriage to Mike, who worries that the arrival of a child will create more problems than it will solve in their relationship.
read more
Dream House is a riveting debut novel that tells the story of a domestic drama that will irrevocably affect the lives of two families.
One terrible night. One outraged act. What price will people pay to hold their homes and dreams together? When Kate and Stuart Kinzler buy a run-down, historic house in Ann Arbor, Michigan, they’re looking for a decent remodeling investment and a little space in which to rekindle their troubled marriage. Instead they discover that their home was the scene of a terrible crime eighteen years ago—a revelation that tips the balance of their precarious union.
read more
A Divinity scholar at Wittenburg University, Horatio prides himself on his ability to argue both sides of any intellectual debate, but as a result is a born skeptic, never able to fully buy into one particular philosophy. That is, until he meets Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark.
As Horatio gets closer to Prince Hamlet, and his own patroness, Lady Adriane, begins to take notice, a mysterious new poet shows up to challenge Horatio’s new-found standing, a man called “Will Shake-spear.” A bi-sexual love triangle inspired by Shakespeare’s own sonnets quickly escalates, and Horatio is forced to choose between his skepticism and his love.
read more
Lilia Albert has been leaving people behind for her entire life. She spends her childhood and adolescence traveling constantly and changing identities. In adulthood, she finds it impossible to stop. Haunted by an inability to remember her early childhood, she moves restlessly from city to city, abandoning lovers along with way, possibly still followed by a private detective who has pursued her for years. Then her latest lover follows her from New York to Montreal, determined to learn her secrets and make sure she’s safe. Last Night in Montreal is a story of love, amnesia, compulsive travel, the depths and the limits of family bonds,
read more
From the incomparable Anne Tyler, a wise, gently humorous, and deeply compassionate novel about a schoolteacher, who has been forced to retire at sixty-one, coming to terms with the final phase of his life.
Liam Pennywell, who set out to be a philosopher and ended up teaching fifth grade, never much liked the job at that run-down private school, so early retirement doesn’t bother him. But he is troubled by his inability to remember anything about the first night that he moved into his new, spare, and efficient condominium on the outskirts of Baltimore. All he knows when he wakes up the next day in the hospital is that his head is sore and bandaged.
read more
