The Censor's Notebook

The Censor's Notebook
Author: Liliana Corobca
Publisher: Seven Stories Press
Total Pages: 355
Release: 2022-11-08
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1644211513

A fascinating narrative of life in communist Romania, and a thought-provoking meditation on the nature of literature and censorship. Winner of the 2023 Oxford Weidenfeld Translation Prize A Censor’s Notebook is a window into the intimate workings of censorship under communism, steeped in mystery and secrets and lies, confirming the power of literature to capture personal and political truths. The novel begins with a seemingly non-fiction frame story—an exchange of letters between the author and Emilia Codrescu, the female chief of the Secret Documents Office in Romania’s feared State Directorate of Media and Printing, the government branch responsible for censorship. Codrescu had been responsible for the burning and shredding of the censors’ notebooks and the state secrets in them, but prior to fleeing the country in 1974 she had stolen one of these notebooks. Now, forty years later, she makes the notebook available to Liliana, the character of the author, for the newly instituted Museum of Communism. The work of a censor—a job about which it is forbidden to talk—is revealed in this notebook, which discloses the structures of this mysterious institution and describes how these professional readers and ideological error hunters are burdened with hundreds of manuscripts, strict deadlines, and threatening penalties. The censors lose their identity, and are often frazzled by neuroses and other illnesses.

The Liberators of Willow Run

The Liberators of Willow Run
Author: Marianne K. Martin
Publisher: Bywater Books
Total Pages: 173
Release: 2016-10-17
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1612940803

During World War II, Allied victory rested on the wings of America's Liberator, the B-24 bomber. The only way to build them fast enough was to bring women into the work force. Join Audrey and Ruth as their search for freedom leads them to risk everything to rescue an abused young girl, somehow finding love and redemption along the way.

Murder On Ice (A Detective Joe Ezell Mystery, Book 3)

Murder On Ice (A Detective Joe Ezell Mystery, Book 3)
Author: P.J. Conn
Publisher: ePublishing Works!
Total Pages: 202
Release: 2017-10-21
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1947833065

". . . charming glimpse of Hollywood in the 1940’s. A relaxing read even with the murder and mayhem." ~Tree House Reader, eBook Discovery Reviewer Up and Coming Starlet Gets ICED in, Murder on Ice by P.J. Conn -- Los Angeles, California, 1947 -- When aspiring actress Cookie Crumble is found dead in a refrigerator in a vacant apartment, the police immediately suspect the landlord's son whose father hires gumshoe PI Joe Ezell to find the true killer. With a long list of suspects from ardent fans, to jealous lovers, to the mobster who Cookie rebuffed, Joe goes undercover as an actor. Did Cookie's dreams of silver-screen fame lead to her murder? But the closer Joe gets to the truth, the more likely he is to get iced. Publisher Note: The Detective Joe Ezell Mystery Series is a "clean and wholesome" read with no sex or vulgar language and will be enjoyed by readers of cozy mysteries and classic detective "whodunit" mysteries in the spirit of Sam Spade and Humphrey Bogart. While not a true noir or hard-boiled mystery, this series captures the charm of film noir without the drugs, sex and beatings. ". . . solid characters, set back in the 1940's where times seemed simpler . . ." ~C. Weber, eBook Discovery Reviewer The Detective Joe Ezell Mystery Series, in order Murder Me Twice Stairway to Murder Murder on Ice Murder on Stilettos About the Author: Always a passionate lover of books, this New York Times bestselling author first answered a call to write in the 1980s and swiftly embarked on her own mythic journey. MURDER ON STILETTOS, the fourth book in her Joe Ezell Mystery series, written as P. J., is her forty-sixth release. With more than seven million copies in print of her historical, contemporary and futuristic books written under her own name as well as her pseudonyms, Cinnamon Burke, and P. J. Conn, she is as enthusiastic as ever about writing. A native Californian, Phoebe attended the University of Arizona and California State University at Los Angeles where she earned a BA in Art History and an MA in Education. Her books have won Romantic Times Reviewer’s Choice Awards and a nomination for Storyteller of the Year. Her futuristic, STARFIRE RISING, won a RomCom award as best Futuristic Romance of the year. She is a member of Romance Writers of America, Novelists Inc. and Sisters in Crime. She is the proud mother of two grown sons and two adorable grandchildren, who love to have her read to them. Phoebe loves to hear from her readers and can be reached at [email protected].

The End of the Story

The End of the Story
Author: Liliana Heker
Publisher: Biblioasis
Total Pages: 130
Release: 2012-05-22
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1926845498

"Liliana Heker is one of the most remarkable voices of the Argentinean generation after Borges ... her fiction chronicles the small tragedies that take place within the vast tragedy of our history. A universal and indispensable writer." - Alberto Manguel When Diana Glass witnesses Leonora's abduction from a street in Buenos Aires, she despairs that her friend has joined the ranks of los desaparaecidos, the missing ones. She begins to write the story of their friendship, but certain memories, details, and whispered allegations about Leonora's fate consistently intrude. Leonora was born to drink life down to the bottom of the glass. But, Diana wonders, is that necessarily a virtue? Gripping, intelligent, and intricately structured, Liliana Heker's novel of an unstable revolutionary pasionaria has inflamed readers across Latin America. The End of the Story is a shocking study of the pyschology of torture, and a tragic portrait of Argentina's Dirty War.

The Secret Portrait

The Secret Portrait
Author: Lillian Stewart Carl
Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
Total Pages: 302
Release: 2006-05-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1557429235

Fleeing an academic scandal and a broken marriage, Jean Fairbairn has come to Scotland to work for an Edinburgh-based history and travel magazine. But when Jean heads for the Highlands to investigate the 18th century mystery of Bonnie Prince Charlie's lost treasure, she finds herself involved in a contemporary murder case - and not as an innocent bystander, either. Alasdair Cameron, the police detective in charge, has his own perspective on reality and illusion. The American dot-com millionaire living out his tartan fantasies in a restored mansion is the loosest of loose cannons. His trophy wife isn't necessarily standing by her man. Their housekeeper knows what's going to happen before it does. And their youth piper is a kilted daydream, even though his parents are nightmares. If butting heads - not to mention hearts - with Cameron isn't enough to do Jean in, then a killer is waiting and watching, with a motive for murder not hidden nearly deeply enough in the past.

Nothing to See Here

Nothing to See Here
Author: Kevin Wilson
Publisher: HarperCollins
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2019-10-29
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0062913484

A New York Times Bestseller • A Read with Jenna Today Show Book Club Pick! Named a Best Book of the Year by The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, People, Entertainment Weekly, USA Today, TIME, The A.V. Club, Buzzfeed, and PopSugar “I can’t believe how good this book is.... It’s wholly original. It’s also perfect.... Wilson writes with such a light touch.... The brilliance of the novel [is] that it distracts you with these weirdo characters and mesmerizing and funny sentences and then hits you in a way you didn’t see coming. You’re laughing so hard you don’t even realize that you’ve suddenly caught fire.” —Taffy Brodesser-Akner, author of Fleishman is in Trouble, New York Times Book Review From the New York Times bestselling author of The Family Fang, a moving and uproarious novel about a woman who finds meaning in her life when she begins caring for two children with a remarkable ability. Lillian and Madison were unlikely roommates and yet inseparable friends at their elite boarding school. But then Lillian had to leave the school unexpectedly in the wake of a scandal and they’ve barely spoken since. Until now, when Lillian gets a letter from Madison pleading for her help. Madison’s twin stepkids are moving in with her family and she wants Lillian to be their caretaker. However, there’s a catch: the twins spontaneously combust when they get agitated, flames igniting from their skin in a startling but beautiful way. Lillian is convinced Madison is pulling her leg, but it’s the truth. Thinking of her dead-end life at home, the life that has consistently disappointed her, Lillian figures she has nothing to lose. Over the course of one humid, demanding summer, Lillian and the twins learn to trust each other—and stay cool—while also staying out of the way of Madison’s buttoned-up politician husband. Surprised by her own ingenuity yet unused to the intense feelings of protectiveness she feels for them, Lillian ultimately begins to accept that she needs these strange children as much as they need her—urgently and fiercely. Couldn’t this be the start of the amazing life she’d always hoped for? With white-hot wit and a big, tender heart, Kevin Wilson has written his best book yet—a most unusual story of parental love.

Heavy

Heavy
Author: Kiese Laymon
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2018-10-16
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1501125699

*Selected as One of the Best Books of the 21st Century by The New York Times* *Named a Best Book of the Year by The New York Times, Publishers Weekly, NPR, Broadly, BuzzFeed (Nonfiction), The Undefeated, Library Journal (Biography/Memoirs), The Washington Post (Nonfiction), Southern Living (Southern), Entertainment Weekly, and The New York Times Critics* In this powerful, provocative, and universally lauded memoir—winner of the Andrew Carnegie Medal and finalist for the Kirkus Prize—genre-bending essayist and novelist Kiese Laymon “provocatively meditates on his trauma growing up as a black man, and in turn crafts an essential polemic against American moral rot” (Entertainment Weekly). In Heavy, Laymon writes eloquently and honestly about growing up a hard-headed black son to a complicated and brilliant black mother in Jackson, Mississippi. From his early experiences of sexual violence, to his suspension from college, to time in New York as a college professor, Laymon charts his complex relationship with his mother, grandmother, anorexia, obesity, sex, writing, and ultimately gambling. Heavy is a “gorgeous, gutting…generous” (The New York Times) memoir that combines personal stories with piercing intellect to reflect both on the strife of American society and on Laymon’s experiences with abuse. By attempting to name secrets and lies he and his mother spent a lifetime avoiding, he asks us to confront the terrifying possibility that few in this nation actually know how to responsibly love, and even fewer want to live under the weight of actually becoming free. “A book for people who appreciated Roxane Gay’s memoir Hunger” (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel), Heavy is defiant yet vulnerable, an insightful, often comical exploration of weight, identity, art, friendship, and family through years of haunting implosions and long reverberations. “You won’t be able to put [this memoir] down…It is packed with reminders of how black dreams get skewed and deferred, yet are also pregnant with the possibility that a kind of redemption may lie in intimate grappling with black realities” (The Atlantic).

The Descartes Highlands

The Descartes Highlands
Author: Eric Gamalinda
Publisher: Akashic Books
Total Pages: 322
Release: 2014-11-04
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1617753041

The American debut novel by the winner of the National Book Award of the Philippines.

Bloodlines

Bloodlines
Author: Jan Burke
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 479
Release: 2005-01-10
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 074325385X

The year is 1958. O'Connor, a young reporter with the Las Piernas News Express, is desperate to discover who has perpetrated a savage attack on his mentor, Jack Corrigan. In and out of consciousness, Corrigan claims to have witnessed the burial of a bloodstained car on a farm, but his reputation as a heavy drinker calls his strange story into question. In a seemingly unrelated mystery, a yacht bearing four members of the wealthy Ducane family disappears during a storm off the coast. An investigation finds that the Ducane home has been broken into; a nursemaid has been killed; and Max, the infant heir, has gone missing. Corrigan recovers his health, but despite a police investigation and his own tireless inquiries, the mysteries of the buried car and the whereabouts of Maxwell Ducane haunt him until his death. Twenty years after that fateful night, in her first days as a novice reporter working for managing editor O'Connor, Irene Kelly covers the groundbreaking ceremony for a shopping center -- which unexpectedly yields the unearthing of a buried car. In the trunk are human remains. Are those of the infant heir among them? If so, who is the young man who has recently changed his name to Max Ducane? Again the trail goes maddeningly, perhaps suspiciously, cold. Until today. Irene, now married to homicide detective Frank Harriman, is a veteran reporter facing the impending closing of the Las Piernas News Express. With circulation down and young reporters fresh out of journalism school replacing longtime staffers, Irene can't help but wish for the good old days when she worked with O'Connor. So when the baffling kidnap-burial case resurfaces, Irene's tenacious love for her mentor and journalistic integrity far outweigh any fears or trepidation. Determined to make a final splash for her beloved paper and solve the mystery that plagued O'Connor until his death, Irene pursues a story that reunites her with her past and may end her career -- and her life.