A new novel, funny, wise, moving, true, as only Lisa Alther can write (“she had me laughing at 4 in the morning” –Doris Lessing), set on a cruise ship, about a woman, a doctor in charge of the ship’s clinic, recovering from the loss of her longtime female lover, a much-admired writer, and coping with the high-wire madcappery of cruise ship life as she reckons with her past and feels her way into the future.
Dr. Jessie Drake, in her mid-sixties, following the sudden deaths of her parents and Kat, her partner of twenty years, has fled the Vermont life she has known for decades.In an effort to escape the oppressive constancy of grief,
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Heather Demetrios’s Little Universes is a book about the powerful bond between sisters, the kinds of love that never die, and the journey we all must make through the baffling cruelty and unexpected beauty of human life in an incomprehensible universe.
One wave: that’s all it takes for the rest of Mae and Hannah Winters’ lives to change.
When a tsunami strikes the island where their parents are vacationing, it soon becomes clear that their mom and dad are never coming home. Forced to move to Boston from sunny California for the rest of their senior year,
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After seventeen-year-old Claire Alalay’s father’s death, only music has helped her channel her grief. Claire likes herself best when she plays his old piano, a welcome escape from the sadness — and her traditional Filipino mother’s prayer groups. In the hopes of earning a college scholarship, Claire auditions for Paul Avon, a prominent piano teacher, who agrees to take Claire as a pupil. Soon Claire loses herself in Paul’s world and his way of digging into a composition’s emotional core. She practices constantly, foregoing a social life, but no matter how hard she works or how well she plays, it seems impossible to gain Paul’s approval,
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Ant is back in Chicago for a funeral, and he typically enjoys funerals. Since most of his family has passed away, he finds himself strangely attracted to their endearing qualities: the hyperbolic language, the stoner altar boy, seeing friends in suits for the first time. That is, until the tragic death of Ray — Ant’s childhood friend, Vince’s teenage cousin. Ray was the younger third-wheel that Ant and Vince were stuck babysitting while in high school, and his sudden death makes national news.
In the depths of a brutal Midwest winter, Ant rides with Vince through the falling snow to Ray’s funeral,
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Part poignant cancer memoir and part humorous reflection on a motherless life, this debut graphic novel is extraordinarily comforting and engaging.
From before her mother’s first oncology appointment through the stages of her cancer to the funeral, sitting shiva, and afterward, when she must try to make sense of her life as a motherless daughter, Tyler Feder tells her story in this graphic novel that is full of piercing–but also often funny–details. She shares the important post-death firsts, such as celebrating holidays without her mom, the utter despair of cleaning out her mom’s closet, ending old traditions and starting new ones,
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A Belletrist Book of the Month, this “exquisite memoir” (Los Angeles Times) is the perfect balm for any reader who has experienced loss.
Lipsticks applied, novels read, imperfect cakes baked—such memories are recalled with “crystalline perfection” (J.C. Hallmann, Brooklyn Rail) in Sarah McColl’s breathtaking testimonial to the joy and pain of loving well. When her mother, Allison, was diagnosed with cancer, McColl dropped everything—including her on-the-rocks marriage—to return to the family farmhouse and fix elaborate meals in the hope of nourishing her back to health. In “thoughtful and finely crafted prose” (Martha Anne Toll,
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