Books
12 Brand-New Books Novels & Short Story Collections (Hardcover & Paperback)
- Item Number
- 101
- Sold
- 10 USD to marthafulmer
- Number of Bids
- 1 - Bid History
Item Description
These books would make an excellent gift for that person in your life who LOVES to read!!
THE HALLELUJAH SIDE by Rhoda Huffey (hardcover), is the funny, heartwarming, and "holy" original story of Roxanne Fish, a little girl growing up in 1950s Iowa in a Bible-quoting Pentecostal family who devoutly believe that the second coming of Christ could happen any day -- certainly by the end of the week. For the Fish family, the world is divided into two groups, those who are saved and ready to be called to heaven any minute and those who are not. Here rock 'n' roll, Capri pants, lipstick, and roller-skating are the work of the devil, and sinners can be spotted in an instant by their knowledge of TV.
With a comic yet tender touch, Rhoda Huffey chronicles Roxanne's coming of age as she races the clock to be counted among the saved. Her neighbors certainly won't be, and it is in their sin-filled basement that Roxanne discovers, thanks to a Little Richard album, another kind of rapture altogether -- her voice. Boy, can this little girl sing! Torn between the here-and-now and the hereafter, Roxanne has a life populated by angels with blue noses, demons who whisper "God doesn't like you," and sinners, sinners everywhere. But through her endearing eyes and in Rhoda Huffey's deft hands, this world seems like the most magical place on earth.
LITTLE STAR OF BELA LUA by Luana Monteiro (hardcover). A luminous fish appears in an impoverished village like a sign from God and proceeds to perform questionable miracles on its foolish, desperate citizens. A guitar-strumming rhymester triumphs over her male opponents in the competitive folk art of the repente only to find herself ensnared in a romantic trap of her own making. A handsome, sexually conflicted priest must confront the uneasy space between spiritual rapture and the greed of man.
Welcome to the rich, textured world of northern Brazil, teeming with scheming families, conniving politicians, magical creatures, loyal and disloyal friends. Little Star of Bela Lua announces the debut of a whimsical yet wise writer.
THE GIRLS by Helen Yglesias (hardcover). An exquisite gem of a novel about the last American taboo, old age, by the extraordinary Helen Yglesias, herself 84 now and going strong. At once very funny and immensely moving, The Girls "is an absolutely beautiful novel. The truest report from the real war zone I ever read," writes Ursula Le Guin in a letter to the publisher. "Please tell Helen Yglesias that she broke my heart and scared me stiff and I love her. Everything in it works together--the more I think about it the more I see that. Oh, what a beauty!"
WOMAN MADE OF SAND by Joann Kobin (hardcover). "It never entered my mind that anyone in my husband's family would die," muses Harriet Stedman at the beginning of this wise and tender first novel-in-stories. On the day of the family patriarch's funeral, the hairline cracks in her marriage and life deepen as the hope for family unity recedes. If Harriet is anything, she is a truth-seeker, a compassionate woman who walks that uneasy line between love of her family and respect for her own vitality and desires. Imbued with unflinching honesty, and achingly human characters whose joys and sorrows are as real as our own, WOMAN MADE OF SAND is the exquisitely rendered story of Harriet, her husband Phillip, and their two children, whose lives flirt with dissolution but then rise through pain to a new wholeness.
This collection of stories spans several decades: from a summer in 1950 at the Jersey Shore in which the conflicts of an extended family are powerfully portrayed, to the present when it seems that the fate of three generations hang precariously on the outcome of a single ballet performance. On all fronts Joann Kobin is a master of subtlety and manages to find great poignancy and power in the finely observed moments when family members connect or fail to connect. Her fictions embrace and augment one another, at dance recitals, on the streets of Florence, the beaches of Cape Cod, at a college conference. The Stedmans drift apart and then come together, sometimes with grace, more often with uncertainty, determined to survive the heartaches of love.
WHAT'S COME OVER YOU? by Marian Thurm (hardcover). How does one recover from unexpected misfortune? With steely grace and relentless optimism, if acclaimed short story writer and novelist Thurm (The Clairvoyant) has anything to do with it. From New York and Florida to California, her characters consistently pick themselves up, dust themselves off and make lemonade with the lemons life has handed them. Thurm's 13 stories, most dealing with the consequences of divorce, are a mixture of heartbreak and humor a rabbi's wife announces in front of the congregation that she's leaving him; a divorced father falls for a lesbian; newlyweds live across town from each other, neither willing to give up their apartments. But her most powerful stories showcase her ability to express deep emotion with a raw, naked intensity. In the truly agonizing "Pleasure Palace," Lynnie grieves over her young husband, who has just died of a brain hemorrhage, and attempts to adjust to life without him. In "Mourners," from which the collection's title is taken, Kay's husband leaves her after he discovers her affair with their daughter's teacher. Kay is unsure why she sabotaged her own marriage, other than out of ennui. She becomes unrecognizable to herself and is desperate for her husband to notice a change in her: "What's come over you? she'd longed to hear him ask." Thurm urges the reader to ask: do we realize how precious something is only once we've lost it? One imagines the characters crossing into each other's stories, advising them to treat their relationships with care, like an adult cautioning a child to appreciate youth. (June)Forecast: Although The Clairvoyant was a New York Times Notable book, popular success has proved elusive for Thurm. Handselling and major reviews will be crucial to the success of this collection, but don't expect miracles.
MODERN ART by Evelyn Toynton (hardcover). Novelists love to write about painters enthralled by the creative process, but in her sleekly composed debut novel, Toynton focuses on the suffering of women who suppress their own creative needs to serve what they believe is their men's greater genius. Toynton's model is the marriage between modern art's favorite self-destructive rebel, Jackson Pollock, rendered as Clay Madden, and the valiant and feisty painter Lee Krasner, reincarnated as Belle Prokoff. Elderly and ill but very tough, Belle views the fanatic mythologizing of her late husband, and her own concomitant fame, with seasoned cynicism. She doesn't hesitate to threaten an unscrupulous biographer, and, when she realizes she needs live-in help, chooses graduate student Lizzie in the hope of helping her break the spell cast by her self-centered artist lover. As this highly concentrated tale develops, Toynton, who excels at generating quiet suspense and succinctly articulating complex viewpoints, astutely ponders the differences between the sexes, the value of friendship over romance, the greed and pretensions of the art world, and the paradox of old age, when wisdom is muffled by infirmity.
VIRGINIA LOVERS by Michael Parker (paperback). In the autumn of 1975, a small town struggles with the mysterious murder of Brandon Pierce, a gay teenager found dead in his parents' bed following a high-school keg party. As Thomas Edgecombe, the editor of the town's newspaper, diligently reports on the crime, he begins to suspect that his two sons may know more about the murder than they're letting on.
Daniel, a straight-A student and a friend of the victim, seems destined for a prestigious college scholarship and a better life, while his younger brother Pete numbs his adolescent pain in a haze of marijuana smoke and derelict behavior.
MERCY by Alissa York (paperback). A gifted young Canadian writer makes her debut in the United States with a dark and spell-binding tale of erotic and pang-ridden legacy of forbidden love.
The landscapes and lakescapes serve as recurring characters in the book. The boys and men wander forests--sometimes finding tranquility, sometimes finding tragedy. They climb and descend dunes. And often, they encounter the Big Lake: Lake Michigan. The idea of a Third Coast figures prominently in the book, the lake and its horizon serving as a kind of world's end, where things pass away or come to life.
MALE OF THE SPECIES by Alex Mindt (paperback). Pushcart Prize–winner Mindt deftly captures in his debut collection men, and those around them, as they negotiate moral binds rooted in masculinity's unwritten dos and don'ts. A high school chemistry teacher transplanted from Wisconsin to West Texas flunks the star quarterback and incurs the wrath of the townsfolk—and eventually transforms his marriage in the title story. In "Stories of the Hunt," a 12-year-old boy on his first deer-hunting expedition with his father recognizes that his father lied about his experience as a courageous woodsman. The African-American dentist of "An Artist at Work" recognizes too late that his decision to move his family from Boston to a Norman Rockwell suburb has fatally alienated his teenage artist son. Similarly, in "Free Spirits," a grown son has to come to terms with his psychotic hospitalized father, who can be as violent as he is sympathetic. Mindt does not present easy choices for his characters, like the heartbroken elderly Mexican-American father in the beautifully composed opener, "Sabor a Mi": he treks to Taos, N.Mex., on the occasion of his adored daughter's marriage to another woman. Though his characters are distinct, Mindt concentrates less on people than on their conflicts, and the resulting discord is tense and surprising throughout.
Item Special Note
These books are sold as a bundle. If you are intersted in purchasing an individual book. Please contact us.
If the winning bidder does not live in the Santa Barbara area, shipping costs will be in addition to the purchase price. We will ship via USPS Media Mail which will be approx. $6.00.
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