A blazingly propulsive novel from the prize-winning author of In Our Mad and Furious City, following a captured jihadist and poet-preacher as he recounts his path to international notoriety Who is Yahya Bas? Revolutionary poet, notorious jihadist, misbegotten son, self-styled idiot-boy . When the enigmatic Yahya finds himself languishing in a detention center after fleeing the conflict in Syria, he has many questions to face. What was he doing in the desert? Why did he betray his home country? What led him to write the incendiary verses that launched him into international infamy? Mister, his interrogator, wants answers. So Yahya  resolves to tell his own story, in his own words, and on his own terms. Mister, Mister is what follows: a coming-of-age story of radical self-invention, a quest for a long-lost father, and a discovery of another way to live in the shadow of war. Brash, biting, yet ultimately tender and bracingly imaginative, Mister, Mister follows a child of the tumultuous 90s and the ravaged aughts as he becomes the unwitting voice of a generation. Who is Yahya Bas? An anti-hero for our modern era, in which we've just begun to survey the wreckage of the West's forever-wars.

"Will Thorne is a stalled poet, married to Judy, a wildly successful celebrity economist. Pressured by a starving fellow poet, Will establishes The Poets’ Preservation Society, a genteel organization to help poets in need. But when Will meets his muse, the enigmatic and athletic Lily White, he becomes inspired not only to write poetry, but to take guerrilla action in support of poets everywhere. Poetry meets parkour and culture clashes with commerce in this hilarious look at how we measure the value of art"-- Publisher's description

<b><i>Introducing 14th century poet Geoffrey Chaucer as a memorable new amateur sleuth in the first of an ingeniously-conceived medieval mystery series. </i></b>April, 1380. About to set off on his annual pilgrimage, Comptroller of the King’s Woollens and court poet Geoffrey Chaucer is forced to abandon his plans following an appeal for help from an old friend. The Duke of Clarence, Chaucer’s former guardian, has been found dead in his bed at his Suffolk castle, his bedroom door locked and bolted from the inside. The man who found him, Sir Richard Glanville, suspects foul play and has asked Chaucer to investigate. On arrival at Clare Castle, Chaucer finds his childhood home rife with bitter rivalries, ill-advised love affairs and dangerous secrets. As he questions the castle’s inhabitants, it becomes clear that more than one member of the Duke’s household had reason to wish him ill. But who among them is a cold-hearted killer? It’s up to Chaucer, with his sharp wits and eye for detail, to root out the evil within.

WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2022 When a book and a reader are meant for each other, both of them know it... After the tragic death of his father, fourteen-year-old Benny Oh begins to hear voices. The voices belong to the things in his house and sound variously pleasant, angry or sad. Then his mother develops a hoarding problem, and the voices grow more clamorous. So Benny seeks refuge in the silence of a large public library. There he meets a mesmerising street artist with a smug pet ferret; a homeless philosopher-poet; and his very own Book, who narrates Benny's life and teaches him to listen to the things that truly matter. Blending unforgettable characters with jazz, climate change and our attachment to material possessions, this is classic Ruth Ozeki - bold, humane and heartbreaking.

<b><i>Introducing 14th century poet Geoffrey Chaucer as a memorable new amateur sleuth in the first of an ingeniously-conceived medieval mystery series. </i></b>April, 1380. About to set off on his annual pilgrimage, Comptroller of the King’s Woollens and court poet Geoffrey Chaucer is forced to abandon his plans following an appeal for help from an old friend. The Duke of Clarence, Chaucer’s former guardian, has been found dead in his bed at his Suffolk castle, his bedroom door locked and bolted from the inside. The man who found him, Sir Richard Glanville, suspects foul play and has asked Chaucer to investigate. On arrival at Clare Castle, Chaucer finds his childhood home rife with bitter rivalries, ill-advised love affairs and dangerous secrets. As he questions the castle’s inhabitants, it becomes clear that more than one member of the Duke’s household had reason to wish him ill. But who among them is a cold-hearted killer? It’s up to Chaucer, with his sharp wits and eye for detail, to root out the evil within.

Un roman haletant digne du Code DA Vinci, qui mêle habilement suspense et faits historiques. Mario Hade s'impose comme un nouveau virtuose du polar intelligent. Après avoir travaillé pendant 25 ans au service des enquêtes criminelles, l'inspecteur Bernard Auclair est muté aux affaires non résolues de la Sûreté du Québec. Aidé d'une jeune inspectrice, il enquête sur un meurtre vieux de 70 ans qui le mènera sur les traces d'Emile Nelligan, le célèbre poète prodige québécois. Nelligan aurait été témoin, avec deux autres membres de l'Ecole littéraire de Montréal, d'un meurtre s'étant déroulé dans le Vieux-Montréal en 1899. Pour ajouter au mystère, les deux inspecteurs chargés de l'affaire découvrent l'existence de puissantes sociétés secrètes implantées stratégiquement. Se pourrait-il que certains policiers aient été membres de ces sociétés et aient voulu étouffer l'affaire? Le poète a-t-il été interné parce qu'il en savait trop? Découvrez vous aussi le « secret »...

A Question of Return is a novel that spans generations and continents. Opening in Toronto,1985, the story begins with émigré poet Artyom Laukhin, who has been working to transform his father Pavel's notebook into a publishable literary journal. Artyom's father was a popular Soviet novelist in 1930s Soviet Union, whose spy stories were enjoyed by Stalin himself. When Artyom falls madly in love with Audrey Millay, he begins to link his experiences pursuing her with the experiences detailed in his father's journal about Marina Tsvetayev, a tragic poet betrayed during the height of Stalinism. As the story progresses, the two narratives of Laukhin and Tsevtayeva begin to merge, and when Laukhin's affection for Audrey is finally reciprocated, the past encroaches with shattering effects.

A boy who hears the voices of objects all around him; a mother drowning in her possessions; and a Book that might hold the secret to saving them both — the brilliantly inventive new novel from the Booker Prize-finalist Ruth Ozeki “This compassionate novel of life, love and loss glows in the dark. Its strange, beautiful pages turn themselves. If you’ve lost your way with fiction over the last year or two, let The Book of Form and Emptiness light your way home.” - David Mitchell, author of Cloud Atlas After his father dies, Benny Oh finds he can hear objects talking: teapots, marbles and sharpened pencils, babbling in anger or distress. His mother, struggling to support their household alone, starts collecting things to give her comfort. Overwhelmed by the clamour of all the stuff, Benny seeks refuge in the beautiful silence of the public library. There, the objects speak only in whispers. There, he meets a homeless poet and a mesmerising young performance artist. There, a book reaches out to him. Not just any book: his own book. And a very important conversation begins."There’s powerful magic here...Ozeki is unusually patient with her characters, even the rebarbative ones, and she is able to record the subtle peculiarities of other classes of beings that more overeager writers would probably miss...Ozeki gives us a metaphor for our very own American consumption disorder, our love-hate relationship with the stuff we produce and can’t let go of." - The New York Times Book ReviewThe Book Of Form and Emptiness is about grief, resilience, creativity and psychological difference. It is about the importance of reading, and an observation of the mess consumer culture has gotten us into. It is an affirmation of the power of community. It is funny, kind, wise, urgent and completely irresistible. If you let it — if you listen — it could change your life.

A is a work of fiction in which André Alexis presents the compelling narrative of Alexander Baddeley, a Toronto book reviewer obsessed with the work of the elusive and mythical poet Avery Andrews. Baddeley is in awe of Andrews's ability as a poet – more than anything he wants to understand the inspiration behind his work – so much so that, following in the footsteps of countless pilgrims throughout literary history, Baddeley tracks Andrews down thinking that meeting his literary hero will provide some answers. Their meeting results in a meditation and a revelation about the creative act itself that generates more and more questions about what it means to be "inspired."

Not so long ago James Mangan was a brilliant young poet. These days, however, he toils as a journalist and shivers in the shadow of his glamorous movie-star wife. And now she has left him for her lover. Adrift and depressed, Jamie takes refuge with his father, in whose house he turns up a 19th-century daguerreotype bearing the initials “J.M.” and depicting a man who, as it happens, is Jamie’s spitting image. Could this be the only existing photograph of his purported ancestor, the legendarily dissolute Irish poet James Clarence Mangan? Obsessed by this strange resemblance—and aided by an unexpected financial windfall—Jamie heads to Ireland thinking at last to discover that elusive entity: himself. Instead, in the dreary coastal village of Drishane, he meets the Mangans: derelict Eileen, sullen Dinny, drunken (and shrunken) Conor, and the sexy and very available Kathleen. They know something, for sure—something to do with Jamie, and something they don’t want him to find out.     The Mangan Inheritance is melodrama at its most inventive and suggestive, an inquiry into the problem of identity and the nature of ancestry that beguiles the reader with dark deeds, wild humor, and weird goings-on, on its way towards a shocking and terrifying—and utterly satisfying—conclusion.

It{u2019}s December 24th, 1999. Byron Easy, a poverty-stricken poet, half-drunk and suicidal, sits on a train at King{u2019}s Cross Station waiting to depart. In his lap is a backpack containing his remaining worldly goods{u2014}an empty wine bottle, a few books, a handful of crumpled banknotes. As the journey commences, he conjures memories (both painful and euphoric) of the recent past, of his rollercoaster London life, and, most distressingly, of Mandy{u2014}his half-Spanish Amazonian wife{u2014}in an attempt to make sense of his terrible{u2014}and ordinary{u2014}predicament. What has led him to this point? Where are his friends, his family, his wife? What has happened to his dreams? And what disturbing plan awaits him at the end of his journey? Byron Easy is an epic, baroque, sprawling masterpiece of a novel{u2014}a unique portrait of love and marriage, of the flux of memory, and of England in the dying days of the twentieth century from a young British writer of exceptional promise

From the author of The Angry Buddhist: “An intoxicating and ultimately moving modern romance... A story that's all the sweeter for its shadows” (Los Angeles Review of Books). I Regret Everything confronts the oceanic uncertainty of what it means to be alive, and in love. Jeremy Best, a Manhattan-based trusts and estates lawyer, leads a second life as published poet Jinx Bell. To his boss's daughter, Spaulding Simonson, at thirty-three years old, Jeremy is already halfway to dead. When Spaulding, an aspiring nineteen-year-old writer, discovers Mr. Best's alter poetic ego, the two become bound by a devotion to poetry, and an awareness that time in this world is limited. Their budding relationship strikes at the universality of love and loss, as Jeremy and Spaulding confront their vulnerabilities, revealing themselves to one another and the world for the very first time. A skilled satirist with a talent for biting humor, Seth Greenland creates fully realized characters that quickly reveal themselves as complex renderings of the human condition—at its very best, and utter worst. I Regret Everything explores happiness and heartache with a healthy dose of skepticism, and an understanding that the reality of love encompasses life, death, iambic pentameter, regret, trusts, and estates. “Affecting and funny.” —The New York Times “Edgy and sweet, witty and wise, I Regret Everything is rollicking good fun. It's also, in the end, a deeply moving love story between two unforgettable characters discovering what it means to truly be alive.” —Maria Semple, New York Times–bestselling author of Where'd You Go Bernadette “A poignant story of dreams and the way they can crash into the reality of the dreamers.” —Booklist

Shortlisted for the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour Will Thorne is a stalled poet, married to Judy, a wildly successful celebrity economist. Pressured by a starving fellow poet, Will establishes The Poets' Preservation Society, a genteel organization to help poets in need. But when Will meets his muse, the enigmatic and athletic Lily White, he becomes inspired not only to write poetry, but to take guerrilla action in support of poets everywhere. Poetry meets parkour and culture clashes with commerce in this hilarious look at how we measure the value of art.

« La route est longue d’un sous-sol de Repen­ti­gny jusqu’à la pla­nète Tatouine. Sur­tout si l’on passe par le Super C, Cen­tral Park et le sei­zième étage du CHUM. Mais, pour l’esprit obses­sif, rêveur et décalé du nar­ra­teur, ces détours sont autant d’aventures salutaires. Après des recueils remar­qués, dont Les vol­cans sentent la coco­nut, fina­liste au Prix des libraires en 2016, et La fatigue des fruits, Jean-­Christophe Réhel explore dans ce roman hors norme, tou­chant et drôle les thèmes qui lui sont chers: la soli­tude, la fatigue et la maladie. »-- Quatrième de couverture

Amazon.com ReviewLike his elegant debut, An Instance of the Fingerpost, Iain Pears's The Dream of Scipio is an inventive, gloriously detailed historical novel told from multiple viewpoints. But Pears has set himself an additional challenge by spreading his narrators over several centuries: there's the fifth century French nobleman and bishop, Manlius, a civilized man who has embraced the uncouth Christian faith in order to protect what he holds dear; an 11th-century scholar and troubadour named Olivier de Noyen, the famously ill-fated admirer of a married girl; and Julien Barneuve, an early 20th-century scholar of de Noyen who discovers, through him, a magnificent manuscript of Manlius's called "The Dream of Scipio." Though all three men come from the same small Provençal town, it is this manuscript, derived from the teachings of a wise woman, that links the three narrative threads of Pears's story. At the heart of The Dream of Scipio and, one suspects, at the heart of its author, is the conflict between a classical ideal of learning and the contemplation of beauty, and the noisy, uncivilized, democratizing impulses of the Christian era. A novel of ideas like its predecessor, The Dream of Scipio is neither chilly nor didactic and doesn't shy away from depicting the costs of its narrators' unpopular devotions. --Regina MarlerFrom Publishers WeeklyCritic Harold Bloom once opined that literature is a series of misprisions, or misreadings, by writers of their predecessors. Although Pears might not have had Bloom in mind in his latest novel, the premise is an unlikely embodiment of Bloom's thesis. The story unfolds in three time frames, in each of which a man and a woman are in love, civilization itself is crumbling and Jews become the scapegoats for larger cultural anxieties. In the first scenario, Manlius is a wealthy Roman living in Provence in the empire's crepuscular 5th century. Although he has received the last echo of Hellenic wisdom, he is surrounded by believers in a nasty sect he despises Christianity but must find some means to protect Provence from the barbarians. In fighting for "civilization," he becomes a bishop and the promoter, almost accidentally, of one of the West's first pogroms. In the next narrative time period, a manuscript of Manlius's poem, "The Dream of Scipio," a neo-Platonic allegory, is discovered by Olivier de Noyen, a Provencal poet of the 14th century. As his 20th-century interpreter, Julien Barneuve, discovers in investigating his violent death, de Noyen was attacked because he got caught up in a political intrigue in Avignon while trying to save his love, Rebecca, from a pogrom unleashed by the Black Death. Barneuve, Pears's third protagonist, has a Jewish lover, too, but is enmeshed in the racist policies of Vichy France. Pears has a nice sense of what it means to live in a time when things fall apart, and not only the center but even the peripheries will not hold. But the readers who flocked to An Instance of the Fingerpost might not find the pages turning so fast in this less mystery-driven outing.Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Review"My Life as a Fake_ _is so confidently brilliant, so economical yet lively in its writing, so tightly fitted and continuously startling." –John Updike, The New Yorker “Ingenious . . . Carey is as diabolical as the hoaxes that his book includes.” — The New York Times "Brisk, relentlessly prankish. . . . A virtuoso amalgam of styles, simultaneously a literary conundrum of the Borges variety, an exotic adventure tale evocative of both the settings and the narrative methods of Conrad, and a horror story derived from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein." –_The New York Times Book Review "A wholly absorbing, bizarrely madcap comedy and a telling commentary on the sometimes baffling sources of art. . . . Though fiction, the book is anything but fake. It's truth, beauty and comedy wrapped in one sprightly package." –Chicago Tribune_“We have a great novelist living on the planet with us, and his name is Peter Carey." _–Los Angeles Times Book Review "Circling from the real to the imaginary and back is as happily perplexing as a drawing by M.C. Escher. . . . Carey can bring a character to life, give him a voice and a history and a psychological topography, in a single paragraph." –The New York Review of Books "No other Australian writer in our time has succeeded as well as Peter Carey in writing novels that compel the attention of a world-wide audience. His work . . . occupies a high plane of literary brilliance." –The Boston Globe “Peter Carey’s new novel comes like a monsoon after drought. It is a magnificent, poetic contemplation of the lying, fakery and insincerity inherent in the act of artistic creation. . . . It’s a charismatically furious piece of work, brilliantly meshing its ethical and artistic debate with a rich human drama.” –The Times _(UK)“Reads like the impossible offspring of a fictional ménage-à-trois involving Pale Fire, Lord Jim, and Our Man in Havana. . . . A fabulous book in the original sense of the term--and in the other one, too." –_The Atlantic Monthly_ “In book after book, Peter Carey has proven that he's incapable of writing a dull page. . . . He’s one of the greatest storytellers alive. . . . A dazzling narrative.” –The Christian Science Monitor “Fast, furious and fantastical. . . . Carey is Australia's finest living novelist.” –The Guardian "Carey is that rare artist brave enough to flee success, a tactic that underlies his dazzling track record. Each of his novels sets him a different challenge; in each, he excels. A triumph in its own right, My Life as a Fake_ leaves us wondering how he's going to delight and disconcert us in his next book." –St. Louis Post-Dispatch _"My Life as a Fake_ is the real thing." –Time "Complex and masterful. . . . A haunting story whose surreal events are as captivating and memorable as the misguided aspirations of its characters." –Minneapolis Star-Tribune_ __"In_ _My Life as a Fake_, Peter Carey has created a novel that is captivating and haunting, and, in the end, sinfully delightful. For both longtime readers and those coming to his work for the first time, it's a book not to miss." –Richmond Times-Dispatch "Great rollicking fun. . . . A dazzling, beautifully detailed, intellectually energetic book." –The News & Observer _(Raleigh)__"My Life as a Fake_ _dazzles the reader with heady ideas and literary reference points (à la Frankenstein_ _and Pale Fire), then catapults us into madcap action. . . . [Carey] exudes a hallucinatory realism that makes imaginary universes feel concrete and believable." –_The Village Voice_"A devilishly engrossing meditation on illusion. . . . My Life as a Fake_ [is] an ingenious homage to the power of the imagination and to Carey's ability to create–and connect–worlds within worlds." –The Atlanta Journal-Constitution_Product DescriptionFiendishly devious and addictively readable, Peter Carey’s My Life as a Fake is a moral labyrinth constructed around the uneasy relationship between literature and lying. In steamy, fetid Kuala Lumpur in 1972, Sarah Wode-Douglass, the editor of a London poetry journal, meets a mysterious Australian named Christopher Chubb. Chubb is a despised literary hoaxer, carting around a manuscript likely filled with deceit. But in this dubious manuscript Sarah recognizes a work of real genius. But whose genius? As Sarah tries to secure the manuscript, Chubb draws her into a fantastic story of imposture, murder, kidnapping, and exile–a story that couldn’t be true unless its teller were mad. My Life as a Fake is Carey at his most audacious and entertaining.

The New York Times –bestselling portrayal of the life of ancient Greece’s lyric poet. “[Renault's] historical novels . . . are among the finest ever written” ( The Washington Post Book World ). Simonides of Keos lived during the fifth and sixth centuries BC, a fertile period for the arts, when myths were being acted out and verse had just begun to be written down. In this evocative portrayal of Simonides, the poet is learning to master his craft and secure fickle patrons, and his travels place him at the scene of many central historical events. This fact, along with his friendship with gallivanting, brilliant Anakreon, makes him a perfect guide to the age. The Praise Singer is faithfully grounded in history, with all the immediacy of Mary Renault’s acclaimed novels of the ancient world, offering an unforgettable portrait of such events as the Persian invasion of Ionia, the reign of Pisistratos in Athens, and the fall of Hippias and Hipparchos. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Mary Renault including rare images of the author.

A is a work of fiction in which André Alexis presents the compelling narrative of Alexander Baddeley, a Toronto book reviewer obsessed with the work of the elusive and mythical poet Avery Andrews. Baddeley is in awe of Andrews's ability as a poet – more than anything he wants to understand the inspiration behind his work – so much so that, following in the footsteps of countless pilgrims throughout literary history, Baddeley tracks Andrews down thinking that meeting his literary hero will provide some answers. Their meeting results in a meditation and a revelation about the creative act itself that generates more and more questions about what it means to be "inspired."

In national bestseller The Dream of Scipio, acclaimed author Iain Pears intertwines three intellectual mysteries, three love stories, and three of the darkest moments in human history. United by a classical text called'The Dream of Scipio,'three men struggle to find refuge for their hearts and minds from the madness that surrounds them in the final days of the Roman Empire, in the grim years of the Black Death, and in the direst hours of World War II. An ALA Booklist Editors'Choice.Iain Pears's An Instance of the Fingerpost and The Portrait are also available from Riverhead Books.

Regeneration is Pat Barker's classic, Booker-nominated novel is the classic exploration of how the traumas of war brutalised a generation of young men."A brilliant novel. Intense and subtle." - Peter Kemp, Sunday TimesCraiglockhart War Hospital, Scotland, 1917, and army psychiatrist William Rivers is treating shell-shocked soldiers. Under his care are the poets Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen, as well as mute Billy Prior, who is only able to communicate by means of pencil and paper. Rivers' job is to make the men in his charge healthy enough to fight. Yet the closer he gets to mending his patients' minds the harder becomes every decision to send them back to the horrors of the front. "A vivid evocation of the agony of the First World War and a multi-layered exploration of all wars. A fine anthem for doomed youth." - Time OutPat Barker began her literary career in her 40s, after taking a short writing course taught by Angela Carter. She has now published 16 novels, including her masterful Regeneration trilogy, and has been made a CBE for services to literature. Her novel The Silence of the Girls began the story of Briseis, the forgotten woman at the heart of one of the most famous war epics ever told, and was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, the Costa Novel Award and the Gordon Burn Prize, and won the Independent Bookshop Award 2019.

Two modern-day academics uncover a secret affair between famous fictional poets in A.S. Byatt’s gloriously exhilarating novel of wit and romance."(I)ts manifest intelligence, subtle humor and extraordinary texturing of the past within the present make Possession an original, and unforgettable, contribution. " - Paul Gray, TimeMaud Bailey is a scholar researching the life and work of her distant relative, a little-known 19th-century poet named Christabel LaMotte. Roland Mitchell is looking into an obscure moment in the life of another Victorian poet, the celebrated Randolph Henry Ash. Together, the two uncover a dark secret in Ash’s life: though apparently happily married, he conducted a torrid affair with LaMotte. As Maud and Roland dig deeper, they too find themselves falling in love."Possession is most of all about speech, language, the pleasure of reading, the singularity of reading. (...) ...Possession accomplishes its essential purpose. It makes one read and reflect on language and consider what it meant to another age." - Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, The New York TimesA.S. Byatt won the Booker Prize in 1990 with Possession and was shortlisted in 2009 with The Children’s Book. Antonia Byatt published her first novel in 1964 and, apart from an interlude as an academic, has been writing them - and short stories, essays and critical appreciations - ever since. Although she is known for her high intellectualism, on winning the Booker Prize in 1990, she famously declared - with perhaps a hint of a josh - that she would spend the winnings on a swimming pool for her house in France.

Gulliver's Travels meets The Underground Railroad : a road trip through the countryside – and the psyche – by the author of Fifteen Dogs . Longlisted for the 2019 Scotiabank Giller Prize Botanist Alfred Homer, ever hopeful and constantly surprised, is invited on a road trip by his parents' friend, Professor Morgan Bruno, who wants company as he tries to unearth the story of the mysterious poet John Skennen. But this is no ordinary road trip. Alfred and the Professor encounter towns where Black residents speak only in sign language and towns that hold Indigenous Parades; it is a land of house burnings, werewolves, and witches. Complete with Alfred's drawings of plants both real and implausible, Days by Moonlight is a Dantesque journey taken during the "hour of the wolf," that time of day when the sun is setting and the traveller can't tell the difference between dog and wolf. And it asks that perpetual question: how do we know the things we know are real, and what is real anyway? "A mash-up that is part fabulism, part faux biography, and part satire, Days by Moonlight conveys the experience of grief, managing to transform its inarticulable and symbolic weight into a finely wrought literary work." — Quill and Quire

EDITORIAL REVIEW: In this enchanting debut novel, Maggie Pouncey brings to life the unforgettable Flora Dempsey, the headstrong and quick-witted only child of Lewis Dempsey, a beloved former college president and famous literary critic in the league of Harold Bloom. At the news of her father’s death, Flora quits her big-city magazine job and returns to Darwin, the quaint New England town where she grew up, to retreat into the house he has left her, filled as it is with reminders of him. Even weightier is her appointment as her father’s literary executor. It seems he was secretly writing poems at the end of his life—love poems to a girlfriend Flora didn’t know he had. Flora soon discovers that this woman has her own claims on Lewis’s poetry and his memory, and in the righteousness of her loss and bafflement at her father’s secrets—his life so richly separate from her own in ways she never guessed—Flora is highly suspicious of her. Meanwhile, Flora is besieged by well-wishers and literary bloggers alike as she tries to figure out how to navigate it all: the fate of the poems, the girlfriend who wants a place in her life, her memories of her parents’ divorce, and her own uncertain future. At once comic and profound, *Perfect Reader* is a heady, uplifting story of loneliness and of the spur to growth that grief can be. Brimming with energy and with the elbow-patchy wisdom of her still-vivid father, Flora’s story will set her free to be the “perfect reader” not just of her father’s life but of her own as well.

EDITORIAL REVIEW:In this enchanting debut novel, Maggie Pouncey brings to life the unforgettable Flora Dempsey, the headstrong and quick-witted only child of Lewis Dempsey, a beloved former college president and famous literary critic in the league of Harold Bloom. At the news of her father’s death, Flora quits her big-city magazine job and returns to Darwin, the quaint New England town where she grew up, to retreat into the house he has left her, filled as it is with reminders of him. Even weightier is her appointment as her father’s literary executor. It seems he was secretly writing poems at the end of his life—love poems to a girlfriend Flora didn’t know he had. Flora soon discovers that this woman has her own claims on Lewis’s poetry and his memory, and in the righteousness of her loss and bafflement at her father’s secrets—his life so richly separate from her own in ways she never guessed—Flora is highly suspicious of her. Meanwhile, Flora is besieged by well-wishers and literary bloggers alike as she tries to figure out how to navigate it all: the fate of the poems, the girlfriend who wants a place in her life, her memories of her parents’ divorce, and her own uncertain future. At once comic and profound, *Perfect Reader* is a heady, uplifting story of loneliness and of the spur to growth that grief can be. Brimming with energy and with the elbow-patchy wisdom of her still-vivid father, Flora’s story will set her free to be the “perfect reader” not just of her father’s life but of her own as well.

EDITORIAL REVIEW:In this enchanting debut novel, Maggie Pouncey brings to life the unforgettable Flora Dempsey, the headstrong and quick-witted only child of Lewis Dempsey, a beloved former college president and famous literary critic in the league of Harold Bloom. At the news of her father’s death, Flora quits her big-city magazine job and returns to Darwin, the quaint New England town where she grew up, to retreat into the house he has left her, filled as it is with reminders of him. Even weightier is her appointment as her father’s literary executor. It seems he was secretly writing poems at the end of his life—love poems to a girlfriend Flora didn’t know he had. Flora soon discovers that this woman has her own claims on Lewis’s poetry and his memory, and in the righteousness of her loss and bafflement at her father’s secrets—his life so richly separate from her own in ways she never guessed—Flora is highly suspicious of her. Meanwhile, Flora is besieged by well-wishers and literary bloggers alike as she tries to figure out how to navigate it all: the fate of the poems, the girlfriend who wants a place in her life, her memories of her parents’ divorce, and her own uncertain future. At once comic and profound, *Perfect Reader* is a heady, uplifting story of loneliness and of the spur to growth that grief can be. Brimming with energy and with the elbow-patchy wisdom of her still-vivid father, Flora’s story will set her free to be the “perfect reader” not just of her father’s life but of her own as well.

The restorative power of the ocean brings Jane Austen and her beloved brother Henry, to Brighton after Henry’s wife is lost to a long illness. But the crowded, glittering resort is far from peaceful, especially when the lifeless body of a beautiful young society miss is discovered in the bedchamber of none other than George Gordon—otherwise known as Lord Byron. As a poet and a seducer of women, Byron has carved out a shocking reputation for himself—but no one would ever accuse him of being capable of murder. Now it falls to Jane to pursue this puzzling investigation and discover just how “mad, bad, and dangerous to know” Byron truly is. And she must do so without falling victim to the charming versifier’s legendary charisma, lest she, too, become a cautionary example for the ages.*From the Trade Paperback edition.***### From BooklistIn her tenth Jane Austen Mystery, Barron introduces her novelist heroine to the poet Lord Byron, who is famously regarded as being “mad, bad, and dangerous to know.” Not surprisingly, then, when a beautiful young woman, who has rejected the poet’s unwanted advances, is murdered, the Romantic rakehell is the chief suspect. Ah, but could he have, in truth, perpetrated the foul deed? Fans of the series will not be a bit surprised to learn that Jane is determined to find out. As always, Barron does an excellent job of capturing Austen’s first-person voice, and she gives lavish attention, as well, to period detail. Perhaps too lavish in this case, since the book is slow paced, and there is often more attention to atmosphere than to mystery. Barron’s many fans will not be particularly bothered by this fact, however, and will be delighted to learn—in an appended Q & A with the author—that an eleventh installment in the series is already underway. --Michael Cart### About the AuthorStephanie Barron is the author of nine bestselling Jane Austen mysteries. She lives near Denver, Colorado.

Gulliver's Travels meets The Underground Railroad : a road trip through the countryside – and the psyche – by the author of Fifteen Dogs . Longlisted for the 2019 Scotiabank Giller Prize Botanist Alfred Homer, ever hopeful and constantly surprised, is invited on a road trip by his parents' friend, Professor Morgan Bruno, who wants company as he tries to unearth the story of the mysterious poet John Skennen. But this is no ordinary road trip. Alfred and the Professor encounter towns where Black residents speak only in sign language and towns that hold Indigenous Parades; it is a land of house burnings, werewolves, and witches. Complete with Alfred's drawings of plants both real and implausible, Days by Moonlight is a Dantesque journey taken during the "hour of the wolf," that time of day when the sun is setting and the traveller can't tell the difference between dog and wolf. And it asks that perpetual question: how do we know the things we know are real, and what is real anyway? "A mash-up that is part fabulism, part faux biography, and part satire, Days by Moonlight conveys the experience of grief, managing to transform its inarticulable and symbolic weight into a finely wrought literary work." — Quill and Quire

المراجعة التحريرية:في هذه الرواية الساحرة الأولى، تعيد ماجي باونسي الحياة إلى فلورا ديمبسي التي لا تُنسى، الابنة الوحيدة العنيفة وسريعة البديهة للويس ديمبسي، رئيس الكلية السابق المحبوب والناقد الأدبي الشهير في جامعة هارولد بلوم. عند سماع أخبار وفاة والدها، تركت فلورا وظيفتها في إحدى المجلات في المدينة الكبيرة وعادت إلى داروين، المدينة الجذابة في نيو إنجلاند حيث نشأت، لتتراجع إلى المنزل الذي تركها لها، مليئًا بما يذكره. والأهم من ذلك هو تعيينها كمنفذ أدبي لوالدها. يبدو أنه كان يكتب قصائد سرًا في نهاية حياته، قصائد حب لصديقة لم تكن فلورا تعلم بوجودها. سرعان ما تكتشف فلورا أن هذه المرأة لها ادعاءاتها الخاصة بشأن شعر لويس وذاكرته، وفي حق خسارتها وحيرتها تجاه أسرار والدها - فحياته منفصلة تمامًا عن حياتها بطرق لم تخمنها أبدًا - تشك فلورا بشدة في ذلك. ها. في هذه الأثناء، تحاصر فلورا المهنئين والمدونين الأدبيين على حد سواء وهي تحاول معرفة كيفية التعامل مع كل ذلك: مصير القصائد، والصديقة التي تريد مكانًا في حياتها، وذكرياتها عن طلاق والديها، و مستقبلها غير المؤكد. قصة كوميدية وعميقة في نفس الوقت، *القارئ المثالي* هي قصة مثيرة ومبهجة عن الوحدة والحافز للنمو الذي يمكن أن يكون عليه الحزن. قصة فلورا المليئة بالطاقة والحكمة غير المكتملة لوالدها الذي لا يزال مفعمًا بالحيوية، ستحررها لتكون "القارئة المثالية" ليس فقط لحياة والدها ولكن لحياتها أيضًا.

Acclaimed short-story writer and winner of the Flannery O’Connor Award, Robert Anderson has written a brilliantly inventive first novel–a book that blends the facts of a famous writer’s life with the profound effect of her death on an entire generation.Sylvia Plath’s legacy inspires, harrows, and haunts the three people at the center of *Little Fugue*: her husband, the poet Ted Hughes, freed by her death and then imprisoned by her myth; Assia Gutmann Wevill, Plath’s rival and Hughes’s mistress, who kills herself only six years after Plath; and Robert Anderson, a young New York writer, who is obsessed with Plath’s poems and her suicide, which “forged my identity and, incidentally, ruined my life.”Their lives intersect, transiently and directly, through some of the more dramatic social upheavals of the past decades: the ’68 student riots, the drug-addled seventies, the AIDS crisis of the eighties, the cataclysm of 9/11.*Little Fugue* crackles with wit and verbal dexterity. There have been many accounts of the Plath/Hughes drama, but author Robert Anderson provides a fresh, utterly convincing interpretation of events. This is a brilliant novel of artists caught between the erotic allure of extinction and the eternal power of poetry.*From the Hardcover edition.*Wörter : 115858

<i>Chapter One<br></i><br><br><br>Summons from London 25 April 1813 Sloane Street, London<br><br>Mr. Wordsworth or Sir Walter Scott should never struggle, as I do, to describe Spring in Chawton: the delight of slipping on one's bonnet, in the fresh, new hour before breakfast, and securing about one's shoulders the faded pelisse of jaconet that has served one so nobly for countless Aprils past; of walking alone into the morning, as birdsong and tugging breezes swell about one's head; of the catch in one's throat at the glimpse of a fox, hurrying home to her kits waiting curled and warm in the den beneath the Park's great oaks. Spring--in all its rains and clinging mud, its sharp green scents full-blown on the nose, and a newborn foal in the pasture below the Great House!<br><br>And in this glorious season, too, a splendid change has come upon the little Hampshire village I call my own--for my elder brother, the rich and distinguished Mr. Edward Austen Knight, as he and all his numerous progeny must now stile themselves, having acceded to his benefactor's surname as well as his estates in Kent and Hampshire--has descended in state upon Chawton Great House, with his full retinue of trusted servants, under-gardeners, grooms, coachmen, and what I am pleased to call Edward's Harem: a hopeful clutch of motherless daughters, most too young to marry and still at home.<br><br>Edward intends to spend the better part of the summer in the antiquated pile that once was let to our dear neighbours, the Middletons, Mr. John Middleton having determined to give up the place when his treaty was run. While the Austen Knights idle away June and July in Hampshire, their principal seat--Godmersham Park, in Kent--will submit to refurbishment, the interiors having grown sadly shabby without Edward's late wife's care. It is quite a treat to have one's relations--and all the elegancies of table, coach, and society--but a stone's throw from one's door; and I spun many happy webs for myself that bright April morning, as I walked through the meadows, and listened to the song of a blackbird hidden somewhere in the hedgerow. Edward's eldest daughter, Fanny, is full twenty years old--and although a trifle subdued for my taste, and possessed of starched notions quite appalling in one so young, she must be adjudged a welcome addition to the Cottage circle, whenever she may venture through the village in search of trifles and laughter. It was possible, I thought, that Martha Lloyd and I between us might be of use to poor dear Fanny, in enlarging her spirit and mind--or at the very least, her capacity for wit. There is nothing so quelling in a young woman, I find, as a want of humour; but much must be forgiven the girl--she was thrust too young into the rôle of Mother, when Elizabeth died. Fanny cannot have been more than fifteen, then; and at twenty, must feel already as though she has lived two lifetimes, in managing her father's household. She is certain to find Chawton unutterably dull, however; the Assemblies in Alton are not such as she has been used to, in the elegant Kentish circle she frequents. Was there, I wondered, any young man in the neighbourhood capable of engaging her interest?<br><br>Considering and discarding the various scions of local families as I walked amidst the dew-laden grass, I was full of pleasurable schemes that dreadful morning. Once Fanny was dismissed as too dear a prize for Alton's youth, my mind revolved the various attractions of an altogether different cut of gentleman--one Henry Crawford: for I have reached a most delicious point in the writing of my third novel, which is to be called Mansfield Park, when I must decide whether another Fanny (a sober and rather humourless young woman entirely of my own invention, though not quite my niece) is to make the roguish creature the Happiest of Men, or cast him into the Depths of Misery at a single word.<br><br>I had turned towards home after a brisk half-hour of exercise and rambling thought; when all at once it was as though a cloud moved swiftly across the sun, and my pleasure in the day was blotted out. The very air felt chill. I stopped short a good thirty paces from the Cottage door, a feeling of deepest dread in my heart--and for why? Only that a handsome chestnut hack was tethered to the post in the lane, one I recognised as my nephew Edward's mount. Why should a morning call, even one paid so unfashionably before breakfast, have the power to stop my heart?<br><br>I ran the final distance to the door.<br><br>My brother's eldest son and heir was standing before the fire, dressed not for hacking about the countryside in buckskins and boots, but for Town; his cravat meticulously tied, shirt points terrifyingly starched; a striped waistcoat trimly buttoned over primrose-coloured pantaloons. An Oxford lad of nearly nineteen, he had stiled himself a Corinthian of the First Stare; and it was this unwonted grandeur, as well as the expression of scared dignity on his young countenance, that informed me my heart had not erred. Disaster was in the air.<br><br>"What is it?" I whispered.<br><br>Cassandra came to me then, and enfolded me in her arms.<br><br>"An Express from Henry, to the Great House," she said.<br><br>"Has she gone?" I faltered. "And none of us aware?"<br><br>Edward cleared his throat. "Not quite gone, Aunt. But failing, Uncle Henry says. She is asking for you, I believe. Father says you are to travel up to London as soon as may be--in his chaise--and I am to bear you company."<br><br>"Edward!" I stared at him. "I am sure you should much rather be hunting rabbits on such a fine morning."<br><br>"So I should, ma'am," he stammered, "but under the circumstances--no exertion too great--should consider it an honour--wish most earnestly that you will accept my escort." He bowed stiffly, his face flushing with embarrassment. "Not the thing, you know--lady travelling entirely alone. Might very well be offered an intolerable insult. Besides, m'father commands it."<br><br>Edward, whom I cared for and cajoled so many years since, when his own mother died--to be offering me escort! I understood, then, the punctiliousness of his manner and dress. My nephew was representing his House--and paying off a debt of gratitude. I should be churlish to protest further; and besides, the hour was already advancing.<br><br>I uttered not another word, but dashed upstairs to throw what swift provision I could into a carpet bag. My beloved Eliza, Comtesse de Feuillide, wife of Mr. Henry Austen of Sloane Street--was dying. It seemed far too bitter a truth for Spring.<br><br>When did she first apprehend her mortal sickness, I wondered for the thousandth time as the chaise jolted and swayed over the Hog's-back an hour later?* Was it so early as my descent on London some two years since, for the proofing of the typeset pages of Sense and Sensibility? She suffered then, as I recall, from a trifling cold, and took to her bed on the strength of it; but surely that was a deliberate indulgence, to avoid the necessity of attending Divine Service of a particular Sunday?<br><br>Eliza was never very fond of Divine Service; she had seen too much of Sin, to place her faith in either repentance or redemption; and she felt certain that the clergy were the very last sort of men to lecture their brethren--indeed, she declared the whole pious enterprise an essay in hypocrisy. Eliza preferred to live her life and leave her neighbours to live theirs, without the benefit of unwanted advice or inspection; and on the whole, I confess I admire her philosophy. There is a great deal of disinterested benevolence in it.<br><br>If not April of 1811, then, the illness came upon Eliza soon after: a mass in the breast, that grew until it might almost have formed another--with tenderness, increasing pain, and suppuration. She had watched over her mother's dying of the selfsame malady, years since. She recognised the Enemy.<br><br>My incorrigible Eliza. My gallant friend. A word for gentlemen of high courage--but courage she brought to this final battle, knowing full well she would never triumph. The summer months of 1812 she spent in travel--relished two weeks in the sea air of Ramsgate in October--wished me joy of Pride and Prejudice's sale to Mr. Egerton in November (which met with decided success at its publication this winter among the Fashionables of the ton!)--and by Christmas was rapidly declining.<br><br>And Henry?<br><br>I might have said that he has not the mind for Affliction; he is too busy; too active; too sanguine. All the increasing cares of banking--my Naval brother Frank being now a partner in Henry's concern--and the activity necessary to a gentleman in the prime of his life, must inevitably attach Henry to the world. Add to this, that Eliza is fully ten years my brother's senior, and that the gradual progression of the disease has offered an interval for resignation and acceptance--and we may apprehend the steadiness with which Henry meets his impending loss. And yet--his summons to me surely augurs an unquiet mind, a soul in need of comfort. To part with such a companion as Eliza! --Who, though she gave him no child, brought him endless cheer and laughter from the first day he met her, as a boy of fifteen, when she descended à la comtesse on the Steventon parsonage, and dazzled us all within an inch of our lives.<br><br>"I believe Uncle Henry intends to give up Sloane Street," Edward observed as we rolled into Bagshot. "He claims he cannot bear to meet with my aunt's memory at every stair and corner."<br><br>"Better to remove from London, then," I managed, my throat constricted, "for Eliza shall haunt every bit of it."<br><br>I have known the journey from Chawton to run full twelve hours, when leisure permitted; but we were to have no dawdling nuncheon, no walking before the coachman in admiration of April flowers, no pause for fine views as we descended the final stage into the Metropolis. Barely eight hours elapsed from the moment I bade farewell to Cassandra at the Cottage door, until I found myself alighting in Sloane Street.<br><br>We met the surgeon, Mr. Haden, on the threshold--Madame Bigeon being on the point of ushering the good man out, as we ushered ourselves within--and paused, despite a scattering of rain, to learn his opinion.<br><br>"I fear she is sinking, Miss Austen," he informed me sombrely. "A matter of hours must decide it. I have left a quantity of laudanum--you are to give her twenty drops, in a glass of warm water, as she requires it."<br><br>"But Eliza detests laudanum!" I cried. "I have known her dreams to be frightful under its influence."<br><br>"Her agony will be the more extreme without it." The surgeon doffed his hat to Edward and me, and stepped past us to the street.<br><br>"Mademoiselle Jane!" Mme. Bigeon's elderly voice quavered on the greeting; she gave way that we might enter the hall, her black eyes filled with tears. "At last you are come! I feared--but it is not too late. She sleeps much, yes, but she will wake for you, mon Dieu! Come to her at once!"<br><br>With unaccustomed familiarity--such is the strength of feeling in the face of Eternity--the old Frenchwoman grasped my hand and drew me swiftly up the stairs. I could not stay even to loose my bonnet strings; and that I should be aware of such a nothing on the point of seeing Eliza, must be an enduring reproach. I am ashamed to own it.<br><br>Mme. Bigeon hesitated before the bedchamber door; it was ajar, so that I could just glimpse the outline of the bedstead, my brother Henry dozing in a straight-backed chair set up against the wall; and the silhouette of Mme. Marie Perigord--the old woman's daughter and Eliza's dresser, her constant reminder of all the glories of France that are gone beyond recall. Manon, as she is called, was seated near the bed, her sharp-featured face thrown into relief by the flame of a single candle; in her hand was a small bowl.<br><br>And beyond--<br><br>Eliza.<br><br>Her eyes were closed, her breathing heavy; a few damp locks of hair escaped from her white cap. There was a peculiar odour on the air--a sweet, sickly smell that emanated from the open wound in her breast, and the great tumor lying malevolently there; no amount of warm compresses or fresh linen could blot out the taint.<br><br>I crept softly to the bedside, young Edward hesitating behind me.<br><br>Manon rose and drew back her chair. "Monsieur--mademoiselle . . . I cannot persuade her to take any of the broth. And it is Maman's best broth, made from a pullet. Five hours it has been simmering on the stove--"<br><br>"Hush," Henry muttered, as he jerked awake. My brother's dazed eyes met mine through the shuttered gloom. "Ah--Jane! You are come at last!"<br><br>He rose, and pulled me close; the stale odour of a closed room, and clothes too infrequently exchanged, clung about his person. Henry--who is the nearest example of a Dandy the Austens may claim--had been neglecting himself.<br><br>"Praise God you came in time," he whispered.<br><br>"Mademoiselle!" Manon tugged impatiently at my sleeve. "Perhaps you will try? Perhaps she will take some broth from you, hein?"<br><br>"What does it matter?" Henry burst out, worn beyond bearing.<br><br>"But she must keep up her strength!" the maid protested.<br><br>Pointless to observe that strength would avail her mistress nothing, now.<br><br>Manon's face crumpled into a terrible grimace and she began, painfully, to weep, turning away from the awkward crowd of Austens as though we had caught her at something shameful. Mme. Bigeon swept her daughter out of the room, murmuring softly in her native tongue, half-scolding. I had an idea of the maid's high pitch of nerves, waiting in that darkened chamber through all the hours of a night and day as her mistress's life slowly ebbed, ears pricked for the sound of a particular set of horses halting in the street below. How like Eliza to hold on to the last, as though she knew I was hastening towards her!<br><br>But was she even aware of my presence?<br><br>"Dearest," Henry whispered, bending over Eliza. "Here is Jane arrived from Chawton."<br><br>Her eyelids flickered; the clouded gaze fixed for an instant on my brother's face, unseeing. How great a change was come upon that sprite, that eager, winning countenance! And how helpless I felt, unable to save her, to forestall the dreaded end!<br><br>I took up the bowl of broth and the silver spoon still warm from Manon's hand, leaned close to my dying cousin, and whispered, "Come, my darling, and try a little--to please your Jane."<br><br>* The Hog's-back is a narrow ridge that runs between Farnham and Guildford; the road traveled by the Austens on their journey to London ran along the summit and offered excellent views of some six counties. --Editor's note. <BR><BR><i>Continues...</i> <!-- copyright notice --> <br></pre> <blockquote><hr noshade size='1'><font size='-2'> Excerpted from <b>Jane and the Madness of Lord Byron</b> by <b>Stephanie Barron</b> Copyright © 2010 by Stephanie Barron. Excerpted by permission.<br> All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.<br>Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

The restorative power of the ocean brings Jane Austen and her beloved brother Henry, to Brighton after Henry?s wife is lost to a long illness. But the crowded, glittering resort is far from peaceful, especially when the lifeless body of a beautiful young society miss is discovered in the bedchamber of none other than George Gordon?otherwise known as Lord Byron. As a poet and a seducer of women, Byron has carved out a shocking reputation for himself?but no one would ever accuse him of being capable of murder. Now it falls to Jane to pursue this puzzling investigation and discover just how "mad, bad, and dangerous to know" Byron truly is. And she must do so without falling victim to the charming versifier?s legendary charisma, lest she, too, become a cautionary example for the ages. From the Trade Paperback edition

In this enchanting debut novel, Maggie Pouncey brings to life the unforgettable Flora Dempsey, the headstrong and quick-witted only child of Lewis Dempsey, a beloved former college president and famous literary critic in the league of Harold Bloom. At the news of her father's death, Flora quits her big-city magazine job and returns to Darwin, the quaint New England town where she grew up, to retreat into the house he has left her, filled as it is with reminders of him. Even weightier is her appointment as her father's literary executor. It seems he was secretly writing poems at the end of his life—love poems to a girlfriend Flora didn't know he had. Flora soon discovers that this woman has her own claims on Lewis's poetry and his memory, and in the righteousness of her loss and bafflement at her father's secrets—his life so richly separate from her own in ways she never guessed—Flora is highly suspicious of her. Meanwhile, Flora is besieged by well-wishers and literary bloggers alike as she tries to figure out how to navigate it all: the fate of the poems, the girlfriend who wants a place in her life, her memories of her parents'divorce, and her own uncertain future. At once comic and profound, Perfect Reader is a heady, uplifting story of loneliness and of the spur to growth that grief can be. Brimming with energy and with the elbow-patchy wisdom of her still-vivid father, Flora's story will set her free to be the “perfect reader” not just of her father's life but of her own as well.

From In her tenth Jane Austen Mystery, Barron introduces her novelist heroine to the poet Lord Byron, who is famously regarded as being “mad, bad, and dangerous to know.” Not surprisingly, then, when a beautiful young woman, who has rejected the poet’s unwanted advances, is murdered, the Romantic rakehell is the chief suspect. Ah, but could he have, in truth, perpetrated the foul deed? Fans of the series will not be a bit surprised to learn that Jane is determined to find out. As always, Barron does an excellent job of capturing Austen’s first-person voice, and she gives lavish attention, as well, to period detail. Perhaps too lavish in this case, since the book is slow paced, and there is often more attention to atmosphere than to mystery. Barron’s many fans will not be particularly bothered by this fact, however, and will be delighted to learn—in an appended Q & A with the author—that an eleventh installment in the series is already underway. --Michael Cart Product Description The restorative power of the ocean brings Jane Austen and her beloved brother Henry, to Brighton after Henry’s wife is lost to a long illness. But the crowded, glittering resort is far from peaceful, especially when the lifeless body of a beautiful young society miss is discovered in the bedchamber of none other than George Gordon—otherwise known as Lord Byron. As a poet and a seducer of women, Byron has carved out a shocking reputation for himself—but no one would ever accuse him of being capable of murder. Now it falls to Jane to pursue this puzzling investigation and discover just how “mad, bad, and dangerous to know” Byron truly is. And she must do so without falling victim to the charming versifier’s legendary charisma, lest she, too, become a cautionary example for the ages.

From Publishers Weekly This imaginative debut takes a profound look at the connection between words on the page and the infinite interpretations for a reader. For heroine Flora Dempsey, the father-daughter bond is a further complication. Flora moves back to her picturesque New England hometown after the death of her father, former president of the town's local college, where she discovers that her inheritance includes the role of literary executor. Lewis Dempsey, an academic writer, has left behind a manuscript of erotic poems written to Cynthia, his lover, whose existence is a surprise to Flora. Cynthia, meanwhile, attempts to become part of Flora's life, wanting friendship—and publication of the poems. Overwhelmed, Flora navigates her father's poetry, retreats into her memories of childhood and her parents' divorce, and poignantly contemplates the acts of reading and writing. Pouncey has skillfully created a portrait of smalltown academia, where the relationships between reader and text are just as elusive and complex as the relationships between father and daughter, husband and wife, or between two lovers. (June) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From Flora, a twentysomething magazine editor, enjoys her visits with her long-divorced, revered literary critic, former college president father, but she has never bothered to read the book that made him famous, Reader as Understander, or the new, unpublished poems he’s entrusted her with. When he dies unexpectedly, Flora is stunned to find herself designated as his literary executor. In a miasma of regret and grief, she quits her job and returns to her stifling New England hometown, Darwin, much to her irascible mother’s dismay. There Flora discovers that her father’s poems were inspired by his love for an art historian fond of flowers and bright colors who is anxious to see the lyrics in print. Flora––testy, rude, “wolfish,” and terribly lonely—enrages everyone as she struggles to understand all that she’s lost and found. Although poorly paced, Pouncey’s first novel is nonetheless sparkling, shrewd, and at times hilarious in its parsing of family dynamics, academic competition, the solace of literature, the aggression of the blogosphere, and what it truly means to be a “perfect reader” and a generous soul. --Donna Seaman

From In her tenth Jane Austen Mystery, Barron introduces her novelist heroine to the poet Lord Byron, who is famously regarded as being “mad, bad, and dangerous to know.” Not surprisingly, then, when a beautiful young woman, who has rejected the poet’s unwanted advances, is murdered, the Romantic rakehell is the chief suspect. Ah, but could he have, in truth, perpetrated the foul deed? Fans of the series will not be a bit surprised to learn that Jane is determined to find out. As always, Barron does an excellent job of capturing Austen’s first-person voice, and she gives lavish attention, as well, to period detail. Perhaps too lavish in this case, since the book is slow paced, and there is often more attention to atmosphere than to mystery. Barron’s many fans will not be particularly bothered by this fact, however, and will be delighted to learn—in an appended Q & A with the author—that an eleventh installment in the series is already underway. --Michael Cart Product Description The restorative power of the ocean brings Jane Austen and her beloved brother Henry, to Brighton after Henry’s wife is lost to a long illness. But the crowded, glittering resort is far from peaceful, especially when the lifeless body of a beautiful young society miss is discovered in the bedchamber of none other than George Gordon—otherwise known as Lord Byron. As a poet and a seducer of women, Byron has carved out a shocking reputation for himself—but no one would ever accuse him of being capable of murder. Now it falls to Jane to pursue this puzzling investigation and discover just how “mad, bad, and dangerous to know” Byron truly is. And she must do so without falling victim to the charming versifier’s legendary charisma, lest she, too, become a cautionary example for the ages.

In this enchanting debut novel, Maggie Pouncey brings to life the unforgettable Flora Dempsey, the headstrong and quick-witted only child of Lewis Dempsey, a beloved former college president and famous literary critic in the league of Harold Bloom. At the news of her father's death, Flora quits her big-city magazine job and returns to Darwin, the quaint New England town where she grew up, to retreat into the house he has left her, filled as it is with reminders of him. Even weightier is her appointment as her father's literary executor. It seems he was secretly writing poems at the end of his life—love poems to a girlfriend Flora didn't know he had. Flora soon discovers that this woman has her own claims on Lewis's poetry and his memory, and in the righteousness of her loss and bafflement at her father's secrets—his life so richly separate from her own in ways she never guessed—Flora is highly suspicious of her. Meanwhile, Flora is besieged by well-wishers and literary bloggers alike as she tries to figure out how to navigate it all: the fate of the poems, the girlfriend who wants a place in her life, her memories of her parents' divorce, and her own uncertain future. At once comic and profound, Perfect Reader is a heady, uplifting story of loneliness and of the spur to growth that grief can be. Brimming with energy and with the elbow-patchy wisdom of her still-vivid father, Flora's story will set her free to be the “perfect reader” not just of her father's life but of her own as well. Fiction,General,Literary,Psychological

The restorative power of the ocean brings Jane Austen and her beloved brother Henry, to Brighton after Henry?s wife is lost to a long illness. But the crowded, glittering resort is far from peaceful, especially when the lifeless body of a beautiful young society miss is discovered in the bedchamber of none other than George Gordon?otherwise known as Lord Byron. As a poet and a seducer of women, Byron has carved out a shocking reputation for himself?but no one would ever accuse him of being capable of murder. Now it falls to Jane to pursue this puzzling investigation and discover just how "mad, bad, and dangerous to know" Byron truly is. And she must do so without falling victim to the charming versifier?s legendary charisma, lest she, too, become a cautionary example for the ages. From the Trade Paperback edition

<p><p>one Of Our Most Accomplished Literary Artists, John Crowley Imagines The Novel The Haunted Romantic Poet Lord Byron Never Penned ...but Very Well Might Have. Saved From Destruction, Read, And Annotated By Byron's Own Abandoned Daughter, Ada, The Manuscript Is Rediscovered In Our Time &#151; And Almost Not Recognized. <i>lord Byron's Novel</i> Is The Story Of A Dying Daughter's Attempt To Understand The Famous Father She Longed For &#151; And The Young Woman Who, By Learning The Secret Of Byron's Manuscript And Ada's Devotion, Reconnects With Her Own Father, Driven From Her Life By A Crime As Terrible As Any Of Which Byron Himself Was Accused.</p><h3>the New York Times - Christopher Benfey</h3><p>crowley's Real Achievement In <i>lord Byron's Novel</i> Is Not A Convincing Imitation Of Byron -- Not Even Byron, Who Was Pudgy And Pale And Walked With A Limp, Could Always Pull That Off. More Persuasive By Far Is The Suffocating World Of Encryption And Code, Coincidence And Conspiracy, Paranoia And Parapsychology That Crowley Summons From His 19th-century Documents And 21st-century Decoders. His Fatherless Daughters And Daughterless Fathers Search For One Another Across This Uncannily Familiar Terrain, Longing For A Unity That Seems Just Beyond Their Grasp. ''happy Endings Are All Alike,'' Ada Byron Slyly Observes In One Of Her Annotations, But ''disasters May Be Unique.''</p>

SUMMARY:There are no rules in the dark, no place to feel safe, no escape from the shadows. But to save the day, you must...Seize the Night.At no time does Moonlight Bay look more beautiful than at night. Yet it is precisely then that the secluded little town reveals its menace. Now children are disappearing. From their homes. From the streets. And there's nothing their families can do about it. Because in Moonlight Bay, the police work their hardest to conceal crimes and silence victims. No matter what happens in the night, their job is to ensure that nothing disturbs the peace and quiet of Moonlight Bay....Christopher Snow isn't afraid of the dark. Forced to live in the shadows because of a rare genetic disorder, he knows the night world better than anyone. He believes the lost children are still alive and that their disappearance is connected to the town's most carefully kept, most ominous secret—a secret only he can uncover, a secret that will force him to confront an adversary at one with the most dangerous darkness of all. The darkness inside the human heart.

“Calls to mind such early moderns as Hemingway and Fitzgerald...Some of the most powerful antiwar literature in modern English fiction.”—The Boston GlobeThe first book of the Regeneration Trilogy—a Booker Prize nominee and one of Entertainment Weekly's 100 All-Time Greatest Novels. In 1917 Siegfried Sasson, noted poet and decorated war hero, publicly refused to continue serving as a British officer in World War I. His reason: the war was a senseless slaughter. He was officially classified'mentally unsound'and sent to Craiglockhart War Hospital. There a brilliant psychiatrist, Dr. William Rivers, set about restoring Sassoon's “sanity” and sending him back to the trenches. This novel tells what happened as only a novel can. It is a war saga in which not a shot is fired. It is a story of a battle for a man's mind in which only the reader can decide who is the victor, who the vanquished, and who the victim. One of the most amazing feats of fiction of our time, Regeneration has been hailed by critics across the globe. More than one hundred years since World War I, this book is as timely and relevant as ever.

SUMMARY: There are no rules in the dark, no place to feel safe, no escape from the shadows. But to save the day, you must...Seize the Night. At no time does Moonlight Bay look more beautiful than at night. Yet it is precisely then that the secluded little town reveals its menace. Now children are disappearing. From their homes. From the streets. And there's nothing their families can do about it. Because in Moonlight Bay, the police work their hardest to conceal crimes and silence victims. No matter what happens in the night, their job is to ensure that nothing disturbs the peace and quiet of Moonlight Bay.... Christopher Snow isn't afraid of the dark. Forced to live in the shadows because of a rare genetic disorder, he knows the night world better than anyone. He believes the lost children are still alive and that their disappearance is connected to the town's most carefully kept, most ominous secret—a secret only he can uncover, a secret that will force him to confront an adversary at one with the most dangerous darkness of all. The darkness inside the human heart.

BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Dean Koontz's The City.There are no rules in the dark, no place to feel safe, no escape from the shadows. But to save the day, you must...Seize the Night. At no time does Moonlight Bay look more beautiful than at night. Yet it is precisely then that the secluded little town reveals its menace. Now children are disappearing. From their homes. From the streets. And there's nothing their families can do about it. Because in Moonlight Bay, the police work their hardest to conceal crimes and silence victims. No matter what happens in the night, their job is to ensure that nothing disturbs the peace and quiet of Moonlight Bay.... Christopher Snow isn't afraid of the dark. Forced to live in the shadows because of a rare genetic disorder, he knows the night world better than anyone. He believes the lost children are still alive and that their disappearance is connected to the town's most carefully kept, most ominous secret—a secret only he can uncover, a secret that will force him to confront an adversary at one with the most dangerous darkness of all. The darkness inside the human heart.

In this enchanting debut novel, Maggie Pouncey brings to life the unforgettable Flora Dempsey, the headstrong and quick-witted only child of Lewis Dempsey, a beloved former college president and famous literary critic in the league of Harold Bloom. At the news of her father’s death, Flora quits her big-city magazine job and returns to Darwin, the quaint New England town where she grew up, to retreat into the house he has left her, filled as it is with reminders of him. Even weightier is her appointment as her father’s literary executor. It seems he was secretly writing poems at the end of his life—love poems to a girlfriend Flora didn’t know he had. Flora soon discovers that this woman has her own claims on Lewis’s poetry and his memory, and in the righteousness of her loss and bafflement at her father’s secrets—his life so richly separate from her own in ways she never guessed—Flora is highly suspicious of her. Meanwhile, Flora is besieged by well-wishers and literary bloggers alike as she tries to figure out how to navigate it all: the fate of the poems, the girlfriend who wants a place in her life, her memories of her parents’ divorce, and her own uncertain future. At once comic and profound, *Perfect Reader* is a heady, uplifting story of loneliness and of the spur to growth that grief can be. Brimming with energy and with the elbow-patchy wisdom of her still-vivid father, Flora’s story will set her free to be the “perfect reader” not just of her father’s life but of her own as well. <div class="bookitem

In national bestseller The Dream of Scipio, acclaimed author Iain Pears intertwines three intellectual mysteries, three love stories, and three of the darkest moments in human history. United by a classical text called'The Dream of Scipio,'three men struggle to find refuge for their hearts and minds from the madness that surrounds them in the final days of the Roman Empire, in the grim years of the Black Death, and in the direst hours of World War II. An ALA Booklist Editors'Choice.Iain Pears's An Instance of the Fingerpost and The Portrait are also available from Riverhead Books.

The dog days of summer have arrived, and Tai Randolph is feeling the heat. Running her uncle's gun shop is more demanding than she imagined. Her best friend from childhood, Rico, is competing for a national slam poetry title worth a bundle. And Atlanta is overrun with fame-hungry performance poets clogging all the good bars. Tai is also handling her new relationship with corporate security agent Trey Seaver. SWAT-trained and rule-obsessed, his brain rewired by a devastating car crash, Trey is geared for statistics and flow charts, not romance. And while Tai finds him fascinating, dating a human lie detector who can kill with his bare hands is a precarious endeavor. Then one of Rico's fellow poets is murdered...and Rico becomes the prime suspect. Tai, springing to his defense with every trick in her book - a little lying here, some snooping there - quickly learns all the poets harbor secrets. And someone has an agenda that's either positively heroic or downright deadly....

In this enchanting debut novel, Maggie Pouncey brings to life the unforgettable Flora Dempsey, the headstrong and quick-witted only child of Lewis Dempsey, a beloved former college president and famous literary critic in the league of Harold Bloom. At the news of her father's death, Flora quits her big-city magazine job and returns to Darwin, the quaint New England town where she grew up, to retreat into the house he has left her, filled as it is with reminders of him. Even weightier is her appointment as her father's literary executor. It seems he was secretly writing poems at the end of his life--love poems to a girlfriend Flora didn't know he had. Flora soon discovers that this woman has her own claims on Lewis's poetry and his memory, and in the righteousness of her loss and bafflement at her father's secrets--his life so richly separate from her own in ways she never guessed--Flora is highly suspicious of her. Meanwhile, Flora is besieged by well-wishers and literary bloggers alike as she tries to figure out how to navigate it all: the fate of the poems, the girlfriend who wants a place in her life, her memories of her parents' divorce, and her own uncertain future. At once comic and profound, Perfect Reader is a heady, uplifting story of loneliness and of the spur to growth that grief can be. Brimming with energy and with the elbow-patchy wisdom of her still-vivid father, Flora's story will set her free to be the "perfect reader" not just of her father's life but of her own as well. From the Hardcover edition

"All the lesbian intimacy you’ve yet to find on OKCupid can be found in this book." -- *Lambda Literary Review* From its beginning—“My English professor’s ass was so beautiful.”—to its end—“You can actually learn to have grace. And that’s heaven.”—poet, essayist and performer Eileen Myles’ chronicle transmits an energy and vividness that will not soon leave its readers. Her story of a young female writer, discovering both her sexuality and her own creative drive in the meditative and raucous environment that was New York City in its punk and indie heyday, is engrossing, poignant, and funny. This is a voice from the underground that redefines the meaning of the word. Poetry,Feminism

André Aciman, hailed as a writer of “fiction at its most supremely interesting” (The New York Review of Books), has written a novel that charts the life of a man named Paul, whose loves remain as consuming and as covetous throughout his adulthood as they were in his adolescence. Whether the setting is southern Italy, where as a boy he has a crush on his parents’ cabinetmaker, or a snowbound campus in New England, where his enduring passion for a girl he’ll meet again and again over the years is punctuated by anonymous encounters with men; whether he’s on a tennis court in Central Park, or on a New York sidewalk in early spring, his attachments are ungraspable, transient, and forever underwritten by raw desire—not for just one person’s body but, inevitably, for someone else’s as well.In Enigma Variations, Aciman maps the most inscrutable corners of passion, proving to be an unsparing reader of the human psyche and a master stylist. With language at once lyrical, bare-knuckled, and unabashedly candid, he casts a sensuous, shimmering light over each facet of desire to probe how we ache, want, and waver, and ultimately how we sometimes falter and let go of those who may want to offer only what we crave from them. Ahead of every step Paul takes, his hopes, denials, fears, and regrets are always ready to lay their traps. Yet the dream of love lingers. We may not always know what we want. We may remain enigmas to ourselves and to others. But sooner or later we discover who we’ve always known we were.**Review"Aciman writes arousal so beautifully you miss it when it's gone . . . [Aciman is] up to something bolder this time . . . Aciman is all the way himself here. He writes with the ferocity of a writer who's finally getting his vision down, and he has to say it, has to get it out. He's made a magnificent, living thing." ―Paul Lisicky, New York Times Book Review"A breathless, sketched rendering of one man’s life in love, Aciman’s novel speaks earnestly not only of longing and lust, but also of more complicated emotions . . . [Aciman] portrays Paul convincingly as a sensuous and self-aware figure, forever treading the border between melodrama and tragedy." ―Publishers Weekly"Is there any writer out there who can conjure the seismic swings and loop-the-loop giddiness of sexual infatuation the way that André Aciman can? He first revealed this talent in his debut novel, Call Me By Your Name, the book that sealed his reputation along with his sublime memoir, Out of Egypt . . . The allure of Enigma Variations rests in its agile sense of the heart’s paradoxes and might-have-beens." ―Michael Upchurch, Boston GlobeAbout the AuthorAndré Aciman is the author of Out of Egypt and False Papers, and the editor of The Proust Project. He teaches comparative literature at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He lives with his family in Manhattan.

BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Dean Koontz's The City.There are no rules in the dark, no place to feel safe, no escape from the shadows. But to save the day, you must...Seize the Night. At no time does Moonlight Bay look more beautiful than at night. Yet it is precisely then that the secluded little town reveals its menace. Now children are disappearing. From their homes. From the streets. And there's nothing their families can do about it. Because in Moonlight Bay, the police work their hardest to conceal crimes and silence victims. No matter what happens in the night, their job is to ensure that nothing disturbs the peace and quiet of Moonlight Bay.... Christopher Snow isn't afraid of the dark. Forced to live in the shadows because of a rare genetic disorder, he knows the night world better than anyone. He believes the lost children are still alive and that their disappearance is connected to the town's most carefully kept, most ominous secret—a secret only he can uncover, a secret that will force him to confront an adversary at one with the most dangerous darkness of all. The darkness inside the human heart.

No bestselling suspense novelist creates magnetic characters as consistently as Koontz does. In last year's Fear Nothing, this veteran author presented his most memorable figures yet: hero/narrator Christopher Snow, whose genetic affliction forces him to shun light; Chris's sidekick, the ultracool surfing dude Bobby; and ultrasmart dog Orson, a product of scientific experiments gone awry at Fort Wyvern in Chris's coastal California town. In this independent-minded sequel, the second novel of a trilogy, the wonderfully delineated loyalties among these characters and others will win readers' hearts as Koontz plunges his cast into terror. Koontz moves the trilogy's overarching plot in a wholly unexpected direction, pursuing not the experiments that begat Orson but a parallel time-travel/disruption experiment. The gambit feels a bit arbitrary, but it voids the attenuation that plagues many middle volumes. The story begins right after that of Fear Nothing, when Chris learns that children have been abducted to the Fort. Soon Orson is gone as well, but he's replaced smartly by Mungojerrie, the clever cat introduced in volume one. Set mostly at the abandoned Fort, as Chris and company search for the missing kids and dog, the novel proves supernally spooky (and, at times, surprisingly?deliberately?humorous). The suspense soars, culminating in a volcanic if somewhat confusing eruption of action climaxes. A principal villain makes a late appearance, but he's not as menacing as Fear Nothing's fiendish monkey troops, who also show up. Though not as seamlessly constructed as Fear Nothing, this novel stands as vintage Koontz, a rousing crowd-pleaser that recapitulates some of his recurrent themes?the pain of the outsider; the power of love; the threat of scientism?while sturdily continuing a trilogy that's shaping up as his masterwork. <div class="bookitem