Martin Lemelman’s elegiac and bittersweet graphic memoir Two Cents Plain collects the memories and artifacts of the author’s childhood in Brooklyn. The son of Holocaust survivors, Lemelman grew up in the back of his family’s candy store in Brownsville during the 1950s and ’60s, as the neighborhood, and much of the city, moved into a period of deep decline. In Two Cents Plain, Lemelman pieces together the fragments of his past in an effort to come to terms with a childhood that was marked by struggle both in and outside of the home. But his was not a childhood wholly without its pleasures.
read more
Katie Arnoldi’s critically acclaimed debut novel Chemical Pink launched her onto the bestseller lists and so established itself into the public’s consciousness that its title was the answer to a Double Jeopardy question.
Two years ago Overlook published her sophomore effort, The Wentworths, a searing portrait of a wealthy Westside, Los Angeles, family. This too was a fixture on bestseller lists and earned her a wider audience.
With Point Dume she has produced her most remarkable novel to date—bringing to life subjects she knows well—the death of surf culture,
read more
Reading is a revolutionary act, an act of engagement in a culture that wants us to disengage. In The Lost Art of Reading, David L. Ulin asks a number of timely questions — why is literature important? What does it offer, especially now? Blending commentary with memoir, Ulin addresses the importance of the simple act of reading in an increasingly digital culture. Reading a book, flipping through hard pages, or shuffling them on screen — it doesn’t matter. The key is the act of reading, the seriousness and depth. Ulin emphasizes the importance of reflection and pause allowed by stopping to read a book,
read more
On Thanksgiving Day 2007, as the country teeters on the brink of a recession, three generations of the Olson family gather. Eleanor and Gavin worry about their daughter, a single academic, and her newly adopted Indian child, and about their son, who has been caught in the imploding real-estate bubble. While the Olsons navigate the tensions and secrets that mark their relationships, seventeen-year-old Kijo Jackson and his best friend Spider set out from the nearby housing projects on a mysterious job. A series of tragic events bring these two worlds ever closer, exposing the dangerously thin line between suburban privilege and urban poverty,
read more
In his beguiling and powerful new novel, the award-winning author of Dancing in the Lowcountry serves up a story of friendship, Southern food, dreams, and determination.
Loretta Crawford grew up in a family where lives are small and appetites are big, and where the cure for what ails you can usually be found in a plate of hot biscuits or a slice of rich pound cake. The results show all too clearly on her 5’4″, 280-pound frame. Until one day, Loretta realizes she’s had enough—enough of her mama’s sugarcoated putdowns and of feeling unattractive, and enough of being called “Bubbles”
read more
Eight lives are about to change inCopenhagen. The executives of the Tank, a financial firm downtown, have just heard that a financial crisis is looming. Which employees will make the cut? Harold Jaeger isn’t too worried; he is the protégé of Frederick Breathwaite, an American who has worked for the Tank for twenty-five years. Jaeger’s life has been on a downward slide lately; he is divorced, alienated from his ex-wife, and growing tired of his womanizing ways. He is falling for Birgitte Sommer, a coworker whose own marriage is in trouble.
Despite his years of loyalty,
read more
