Piranesi

Piranesi
Author: Susanna Clarke
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2021
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1526622432

Piranesi lives in the House. Perhaps he always has. In his notebooks, day after day, he makes a clear and careful record of its wonders: the labyrinth of halls, the thousands upon thousands of statues, the tides that thunder up staircases, the clouds that move in slow procession through the upper halls. On Tuesdays and Fridays Piranesi sees his friend, the Other. At other times he brings tributes of food and waterlilies to the Dead. But mostly, he is alone. Messages begin to appear, scratched out in chalk on the pavements. There is someone new in the House. But who are they and what do they want? Are they a friend or do they bring destruction and madness as the Other claims? Lost texts must be found; secrets must be uncovered. The world that Piranesi thought he knew is becoming strange and dangerous

Detransition, Baby

Detransition, Baby
Author: Torrey Peters
Publisher: One World
Total Pages: 369
Release: 2021-01-12
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0593133390

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The lives of three women—transgender and cisgender—collide after an unexpected pregnancy forces them to confront their deepest desires in “one of the most celebrated novels of the year” (Time) “Reading this novel is like holding a live wire in your hand.”—Vulture One of the New York Times’s 100 Best Books of the 21st Century Named one of the Best Books of the Year by more than twenty publications, including The New York Times Book Review, Entertainment Weekly, NPR, Time, Vogue, Esquire, Vulture, and Autostraddle PEN/Hemingway Award Winner • Finalist for the Lambda Literary Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Gotham Book Prize • Longlisted for The Women’s Prize • Roxane Gay’s Audacious Book Club Pick • New York Times Editors’ Choice Reese almost had it all: a loving relationship with Amy, an apartment in New York City, a job she didn't hate. She had scraped together what previous generations of trans women could only dream of: a life of mundane, bourgeois comforts. The only thing missing was a child. But then her girlfriend, Amy, detransitioned and became Ames, and everything fell apart. Now Reese is caught in a self-destructive pattern: avoiding her loneliness by sleeping with married men. Ames isn't happy either. He thought detransitioning to live as a man would make life easier, but that decision cost him his relationship with Reese—and losing her meant losing his only family. Even though their romance is over, he longs to find a way back to her. When Ames's boss and lover, Katrina, reveals that she's pregnant with his baby—and that she's not sure whether she wants to keep it—Ames wonders if this is the chance he's been waiting for. Could the three of them form some kind of unconventional family—and raise the baby together? This provocative debut is about what happens at the emotional, messy, vulnerable corners of womanhood that platitudes and good intentions can't reach. Torrey Peters brilliantly and fearlessly navigates the most dangerous taboos around gender, sex, and relationships, gifting us a thrillingly original, witty, and deeply moving novel.

The Tamer Tamed

The Tamer Tamed
Author: John Fletcher
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 218
Release: 2014-05-29
Genre: Drama
ISBN: 1408143801

The Tamer Tamed is the subtitle or alternative title to John Fletcher's The Woman's Prize, a comedic sequel and reply to The Taming of the Shrew. The plot switches the gender roles of Shakespeare's play: the women seek to tame the men. Katherine (the "shrew" of the original) has died, and Petruchio takes a second wife, Maria. Maria denounces her former mildness and vows not to sleep with Petruchio until she "turn him and bend him as [she] list, and mold him into a babe again." After many comedic exchanges and plot twists, Petruchio is finally "tamed" in the eyes of Maria, and the play ends with the two reconciled. The play is seen to reflect how society's views of women, femininity, and "domestic propriety" were beginning to change. It is said that Fletcher wrote this play to attract Shakespeare's attention - the two went on to collaborate on at least three plays together. This brand new New Mermaid edition offers unique and fresh insight into the critical interpretation of the play. It builds on current critical foundations (the relationship with Taming of the Shrew, gender relations etc) and suggests different areas of interest (popular associations of the shrew, the question of reputation, and a re-examination of the play's structure). as well as examining stage history and recent productions.

Bottled Goods

Bottled Goods
Author: Sophie Van Llewyn
Publisher: HarperCollins
Total Pages: 175
Release: 2020-07-28
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0062979531

Longlisted for the 2019 Women’s Prize, this poignant, lyrical novel is set in 1970s Romania during Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu’s regime—and depicts childhood, marriage, family, and identity in the face of extreme obstacles. Alina yearns for freedom. She and her husband Liviu are teachers in their twenties, living under the repressive regime of Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu in the Socialist Republic of Romania in the 1970s. But after her brother-in-law defects, Alina and Liviu fall under suspicion and surveillance, and their lives are suddenly turned upside down—just like the glasses in her superstitious Aunt Theresa's house that are used to ward off evil spirits. But Alina's evil spirits are more corporeal: a suffocating, manipulative mother; a student who accuses her; and a menacing Secret Services agent who makes one-too-many visits. As the couple continues to be harassed, their marriage soon deteriorates. With the government watching—and most likely listening— escape seems impossible . . . until Alina’s mystical aunt proposes a surprising solution to reduce her problems to a manageable size. Weaving elements of magic realism, Romanian folklore, and Kafkaesque paranoia into a gritty and moving depiction of one woman's struggle for personal and political freedom, Bottled Goods is written in short bursts of “flash fiction” and explores universal themes of empowerment, liberty, family, and loyalty.

When I Lived in Modern Times

When I Lived in Modern Times
Author: Linda Grant
Publisher: Granta Books
Total Pages: 203
Release: 2011
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1847082610

Stylish reissue of the Orange Prize Winning Novel.

Dominicana

Dominicana
Author: Angie Cruz
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Total Pages: 381
Release: 2019-09-03
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1250205921

A GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK Shortlisted for the 2020 Women's Prize for Fiction “Through a novel with so much depth, beauty, and grace, we, like Ana, are forever changed.” —Jacqueline Woodson, Vanity Fair “Gorgeous writing, gorgeous story.” —Sandra Cisneros Fifteen-year-old Ana Cancion never dreamed of moving to America, the way the girls she grew up with in the Dominican countryside did. But when Juan Ruiz proposes and promises to take her to New York City, she has to say yes. It doesn’t matter that he is twice her age, that there is no love between them. Their marriage is an opportunity for her entire close-knit family to eventually immigrate. So on New Year’s Day, 1965, Ana leaves behind everything she knows and becomes Ana Ruiz, a wife confined to a cold six-floor walk-up in Washington Heights. Lonely and miserable, Ana hatches a reckless plan to escape. But at the bus terminal, she is stopped by Cesar, Juan’s free-spirited younger brother, who convinces her to stay. As the Dominican Republic slides into political turmoil, Juan returns to protect his family’s assets, leaving Cesar to take care of Ana. Suddenly, Ana is free to take English lessons at a local church, lie on the beach at Coney Island, see a movie at Radio City Music Hall, go dancing with Cesar, and imagine the possibility of a different kind of life in America. When Juan returns, Ana must decide once again between her heart and her duty to her family. In bright, musical prose that reflects the energy of New York City, Angie Cruz's Dominicana is a vital portrait of the immigrant experience and the timeless coming-of-age story of a young woman finding her voice in the world.

A Boy in Winter

A Boy in Winter
Author: Rachel Seiffert
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2017-08-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0307908844

Early on a gray November morning in 1941, a small Ukrainian town is overrun by the SS. Penned in with his fellow Jews, a father anxiously awaits word of his two sons, while a young woman, come to fetch her sweetheart away from the invaders, must confront new and harsh truths about those closest to her. At the same time, a German engineer, here to avoid a war he considers criminal, is faced with an even greater crime unfolding behind the lines and no one but himself to turn to. And in the midst of it all, a boy determined to survive must throw in his lot with strangers. As their stories weave together, each of these characters comes to know the compromises demanded by survival, the oppressive power of fear, and the possibility of courage in the face of terror.

A Spell of Winter

A Spell of Winter
Author: Helen Dunmore
Publisher: Grove Press
Total Pages: 324
Release: 2001
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9780802138767

Catherine and her brother, Rob, don't know why they have been abandoned by their parents. Incarcerated in the enormous country house of their grandfather, they create a refuge against their family's dark secrets as the outside world moves towards the First World War. As time passes their sibling love deepens and crosses into forbidden territory.

Prize Women

Prize Women
Author: Caroline Lea
Publisher: HarperCollins
Total Pages: 401
Release: 2023-02-14
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0063244357

The critically acclaimed author of The Glass Woman and The Metal Heart reimagines the shocking story of one of the most controversial contests in history, the Great Stork Derby, in which a millionaire’s death spawns a furious competition for his inheritance. Toronto, 1926. Knowing that he will die without an heir, childless millionaire Charles Millar leaves behind a controversial will: the recipient of his fortune will be decided in a contest that will become a media sensation and be known as the Great Stork Derby. His money will go to the winner: the woman who bears the most children in the ten years after his death. It is a bequest that will have dramatic consequences for the lives of two women—allies and close friends. Lily di Marco is young, pregnant, and terrified of her alcoholic, violent husband. When her town is damaged by an earthquake, she flees to Toronto, arriving, by chance, on the doorstep of the glamourous Mae Thebault. While Mae presents an elegant, confident face to the world, she secretly struggles with her own tortured past and a present consumed with the never-ending burdens of motherhood. Lily enters her life at a breaking point, and soon a fierce friendship blossoms between the women. That is until the Great Depression and the contest, with its alluring prize, threatens to tear their friendship—and their lives—apart. Prize Women is an evocative and engrossing novel of motherhood, survival, and the heartbreaking decisions we make to protect the ones we love—even when it hurts those we care for most.

Build Your House Around My Body

Build Your House Around My Body
Author: Violet Kupersmith
Publisher: Random House
Total Pages: 401
Release: 2021-07-06
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0812993322

Part puzzle, part revenge tale, part ghost story, this ingenious novel spins half a century of Vietnamese history and folklore into “a thrilling read, acrobatic and filled with verve” (The New York Times Editors’ Choice). FINALIST FOR THE CENTER FOR FICTION’S FIRST NOVEL PRIZE • LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN’S PRIZE FOR FICTION • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, NPR, Good Housekeeping, Kirkus Reviews “Fiction as daring and accomplished as Violet Kupersmith’s first novel reignites my love of the form and its kaleidoscopic possibilities.”—David Mitchell, author of Cloud Atlas Two young women go missing decades apart. Both are fearless, both are lost. And both will have their revenge. 1986: The teenage daughter of a wealthy Vietnamese family loses her way in an abandoned rubber plantation while fleeing her angry father and is forever changed. 2011: A young, unhappy Vietnamese American woman disappears from her new home in Saigon without a trace. The fates of these two women are inescapably linked, bound together by past generations, by ghosts and ancestors, by the history of possessed bodies and possessed lands. Alongside them, we meet a young boy who is sent to a boarding school for the métis children of French expatriates, just before Vietnam declares its independence from colonial rule; two Frenchmen who are trying to start a business with the Vietnam War on the horizon; and the employees of the Saigon Spirit Eradication Co., who find themselves investigating strange occurrences in a farmhouse on the edge of a forest. Each new character and timeline brings us one step closer to understanding what binds them all. Build Your House Around My Body takes us from colonial mansions to ramshackle zoos, from sweaty nightclubs to the jostling seats of motorbikes, from ex-pat flats to sizzling back-alley street carts. Spanning more than fifty years of Vietnamese history and barreling toward an unforgettable conclusion, this is a time-traveling, heart-pounding, border-crossing fever dream of a novel that will haunt you long after the last page.