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‘Dazzlingly and daringly written’ Rachel Cooke, Observer W-3 is a small psychiatric ward in a large university hospital, a world of pills and passes dispensed by an all-powerful staff, a world of veteran patients with grab-bags of tricks, a world of dishevelled, moment-to-moment existence on the edge of permanence. Bette Howland was one of those patients. In 1968, Howland was thirty-one, a single mother of two young sons, struggling to support her family on the part-time salary of a librarian; and labouring day and night at her typewriter to be a writer. One afternoon, while staying at her friend Saul Bellow’s apartment, she swallowed a bottle of pills. W-3 is a vivid – and often sur...
An extraordinary portrait of a brilliant mind on the brink: A new edition of the 1974 memoir by the author of the acclaimed collection Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage. With an introduction by Yiyun Li.
The bittersweet, sharply observed stories in Blue in Chicago introduce British readers for the first time to Bette Howland, a forgotten great of twentieth-century American fiction, perfect for fans of Lucia Berlin, Lydia Davis and Alice Munroe.
The acclaimed collection that restored to the literary canon "a long-overlooked artist of live-wire incisiveness, shredding wit, and improbable beauty."
‘Reminiscent of Edna O’Brien, with shades too of Jean Rhys.’ – The Irish Times Things to Come and Go showcases the incomparable talent of Bette Howland in three novellas of stunning power, beauty, and sustaining humour. ‘Birds of a Feather’ is a daughter’s story of her extended, first-generation family, the ‘big, brassy yak-yakking Abarbanels’. Esti, a merciless, astute observer, recalls growing up amid (the confusions and difficulties of) their history, quarrels, judgements, noisy love and inescapable bonds of blood. In ‘The Old Wheeze’ a single mother in her twenties returns to her sunless apartment after a date at the ballet. Shifting between four viewpoints – the ...
Golan's book is an eyewitness account of some of the most important events of the 20th century. This is a fresh and engaging story of the experience of Jewish refugees in the Soviet Union and Israel as seen through the eyes of a boy.
There are few figures and leaders of recent American history of greater social and political consequence than Jesse Jackson, and few more relevant for America's current political climate. In the 1960s, Jackson served as a close aide to Dr. Martin Luther King, meeting him on the notorious march to legitimate the American democratic system in Selma. He was there on the day of King's assassination, and continued his political legacy, inspiring a generation of black and Latino politicians and activists, founding the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, and helping to make the Democratic Party more multicultural and progressive with his historic runs for the presidency in the 1980s. In I Am Somebody, David Ma...
A disarming novel that asks a simple question: Can gentle people change the world? In this charming and truly unique debut, popular Irish musician Ronan Hession tells the story of two single, thirty-something men who still live with their parents and who are . . . nice. They take care of their parents and play board games together. They like to read. They take satisfaction from their work. They are resolutely kind. And they realize that none of this is considered . . . normal. Leonard and Hungry Paul is the story of two friends struggling to protect their understanding of what’s meaningful in life. It is about the uncelebrated people of this world — the gentle, the meek, the humble. And as they struggle to persevere, the book asks a surprisingly enthralling question: Is it really them against the world, or are they on to something?
The final volume of the definitive authorised biography of one of the greatest American writers. ‘A moving testament to one of the last century’s greatest writers’ Sunday Times At forty-nine, Saul Bellow was at the pinnacle of American letters – he was rich, famous and critically acclaimed, with the best yet to come: Mr Sammler’s Planet, Humboldt’s Gift, all his best stories. He went on to win two more National Book Awards, a Pulitzer Prize, and the Nobel Prize. However, away from his desk, Bellow's life was set to become embroiled in controversy: over foreign affairs, race, religion, education, social policy, the state of culture, the fate of the novel. From the women he pursued and his turbulent family relations, to his struggles with cultural relativism and the perceived excesses of civil rights movements, this second and final volume of Zachary Leader's monumental Life of Saul Bellow charts Bellow's heroic energy and will throughout his life, right to the end - where his immense achievements and their costs, to himself and others, became ever more apparent. 'Brilliant' Spectator 'Compelling' Times Literary Supplement 'Riveting' New Statesman 'Superb' New York Times
'Irresistable.' Megan Abbott 'A gory, gorgeous feast of a book.' Kiran Millwood Hargrave 'This book is crazy. You have to read it.' Bon Appetit Dorothy Daniels has always had a voracious - and adventurous - appetite. From her idyllic farm-to-table childhood (homegrown tomatoes, thick slices of freshly baked bread) to the heights of her career as a food critic (white truffles washed down with Barolo straight from the bottle) Dorothy has never been shy about indulging her exquisite tastes - even when it lead to her plunging an ice pick into her lover's neck. There is something inside Dorothy that makes her different from everybody else. Something she's finally ready to confess. But beware: her...