With everything happening on Helen Peppe’s backwoods Maine farm: ferocious sibling rivalry, rock-bottom poverty, feral male chauvinism, sex in the hayloft—life was out of control, even for the animals. Despite the chaos, in telling her family’s story, Peppe manages deadpan humor, an unerring eye for the absurd, and a touching compassion for her utterly overwhelmed parents. While her feisty resilience and candor will inevitably remind readers of Jeanette Wall or Mary Karr, Peppe’s wry insight and moments of tenderness with family and animals are entirely her own.
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Welcome to the quirky town of Cherico, Mississippi, where potluck meetings at the local library provide a feast for mind and stomach alike. . .
If some folks had their way, the Cherico library would have shut down long ago. Councilman Durden Sparks aims to divert funding to a cause dear to his heart–and his wallet. With the aid of gumption and good friends, librarian Maura Beth Mayhew has finagled a one-year reprieve, and the burgeoning book club is raising the library's profile one mouthwatering meeting at a time. But more members mean more opinions. . .
While the Forrest Gump-themed shrimp dishes are a universal hit,
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Andrew Yancy-late of the Miami Police and soon-to-be-late of the Monroe County sheriff's office-has a human arm in his freezer. There's a logical (Hiaasenian) explanation for that, but not for how and why it parted from its shadowy owner. Yancy thinks the boating-accident/shark-luncheon explanation is full of holes, and if he can prove murder, the sheriff might rescue him from his grisly Health Inspector gig (it's not called the roach patrol for nothing). But first-this being Hiaasen country-Yancy must negotiate an obstacle course of wildly unpredictable events with a crew of even more wildly unpredictable characters, including his just-ex lover,
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THE SECOND ENTRY IN THE PICADOR TRUE TALES SERIES: ONE OF LIFE’S TRICKIEST RITES OF PASSAGE COLLECTED INTO AN UNFORGETTABLE VOLUME OF STORIES
The fraught relationship between roommates is a true cultural obsession. Shows like Friends, The Golden Girls, The Odd Couple, and New Girl have held us rapt for decades, simultaneously delighting and disconcerting us with their depictions of mismatched couples’ cringe-worthy awkwardness and against-all-odds friendship. Maybe it’s that uniquely unnatural experience of living with a total stranger that ignites our curiosity, or just that almost all of us, for better or worse,
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New York Times Book Review Notable Book of 2013
In Local Souls, Allan Gurganus offers us three linked novellas, set in legendary Falls, North Carolina—site of his beloved Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All. We find the small town revolutionized by freer sexuality, loosened family ties, and secular worship. Gurganus celebrates those citizens who stayed home but uncovers certain old habits—adultery, incest, obsession—very much alive in this “Winesburg, Ohio” with high-speed Internet. Writing about erotic hunger and social embarrassment with Twain’s knife-edged glee, Gurganus dramatizes the passing of Hawthorne’s small-town America.
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National Bestseller
Named a best book of the year by The New Yorker, NPR, Slate, The Economist, The New Republic, Bookforum, Baltimore City Paper, The Daily Beast, National Journal, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Reader, Cosmopolitan, Elle, Buzzfeed.
New York Times Editors’ Choice
Washington Post Notable book
A debut novel by a brilliant young woman about the romantic life of a brilliant young man.
Writer Nate Piven’s star is rising.
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