In this transcendent and infectiously wise memoir, Becky Aikman—a widow, too young, too modern to accept the role—forms an unlikely group with five other young widows, each seeking a way forward in a strange and disquieting world. A warm, witty, and compassionate guide on this journey, Aikman explores surprising new discoveries about how people are transformed by adversity, learning the value of new experiences, humor, and friendship. The Saturday Night Widows band together to bring these ideas to life, striking out on ever more far-flung adventures and navigating the universal perils of finding love and meaning.
Theirs is a transporting true story of six marriages,
read more
From bestselling author Kristin von Kreisler comes a poignant, uplifting novel of one woman’s journey to healing, and the surprising soul mate that helps guide her there.
Lila Elliot knows she’s lucky. A shooting rampage at her office left several colleagues dead and others seriously wounded. Lila’s injuries will heal in time. Yet though she gratefully retreats to her best friend’s house to recuperate, Lila can’t quite move past her fear and anger. Being drafted into caring for Grace–a shaggy, formerly abused golden retriever–only adds to her stress. Lila has been terrified of dogs since childhood. But Grace,
read more
When Ishmael Beah’s A Long Way Gone was published in 2007, it soared to the top of bestseller lists, becoming an instant classic: a harrowing account of Sierra Leone’s civil war and the fate of child soldiers that “everyone in the world should read” (The Washington Post). Now Beah, whom Dave Eggers has called “arguably the most read African writer in contemporary literature,” has returned with his first novel, an affecting, tender parable about postwar life in Sierra Leone.
At the center of Radiance of Tomorrow are Benjamin and Bockarie,
read more
A bestseller in France and winner of Japan’s Kiyama Shohei Literary Award, The Guest Cat (by the acclaimed poet Takashi Hiraide) is a subtly moving and exceptionally beautiful novel about the transient nature of life and idiosyncratic, but deeply felt, ways of living. A couple in their thirties live in a small rented cottage in a quiet part of Tokyo; they work at home, freelance copyediting, and no longer have very much to say to one another. But one day a cat invites itself into their small kitchen. It leaves, but the next day comes again, and then again and again.
read more
“Without sin, can we know beauty? Can we fully appreciate the summer without the winter? No, I am glad to suffer so I can feel the fullness of our time in the light.”
Upstate New York, 1928. Laura Kelley and the man she loves sneak away from their judgmental town to attend a performance of the scandalous Ziegfeld Follies. But the dark consequences of their night of daring and delight reach far into the future.…
That same evening, Bohemian poet Edna St. Vincent Millay and her indulgent husband hold a wild party in their remote mountain estate,
read more
Set against the turbulent backdrop of the 1960s, Noah Bly’s evocative debut explores prejudice, loss, and redeeming courage through the prism of an unlikely friendship.
When fifty-four-year-old Julianna Dapper slips out of a mental hospital in Bangor, Maine, on a June day in 1962, it’s with one purpose in mind. Julianna knows she must go back to the tiny farming community in northern Missouri where she was born and raised. It’s the place where she and her best friend, Ben Taylor, roamed as children, and where her life’s course shifted irrevocably one night long ago.
Embarking on her journey,
read more