The Pawnbrokers Reward

The Pawnbrokers Reward
Author: DECLAN. O'ROURKE
Publisher: Gateway Books
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2021-10-29
Genre: Ireland
ISBN: 9780717186327

Declan O'Rourke's award-winning album, Chronicles of the Great Irish Famine, was released to critical acclaim in 2017. It illuminated an extraordinary series of eye-witness accounts, including the story of Pádraig and Cáit ua Buachalla. Four years on, in Declan's meticulously researched literary debut, the story of the ua Buachalla family is woven into a powerful, multilayered work showing us the famine as it happened through the lens of a single town - Macroom, Co. Cork - and its environs.

Remember Me Like This

Remember Me Like This
Author: Bret Anthony Johnston
Publisher: Random House
Total Pages: 402
Release: 2014-05-13
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 081299616X

“Enthralling . . . [an] exquisitely moral mystery of how we struggle to accept and love the people we call family.”—The New York Times Book Review (Editor’s Choice) NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • Esquire • BookPage A gripping novel with the pace of a thriller but the nuanced characterization and deep empathy of some of the literary canon’s most beloved novels, Remember Me Like This introduces Bret Anthony Johnston as one of the most gifted storytellers writing today. With his sophisticated and emotionally taut plot and his shimmering prose, Johnston reveals that only in caring for one another can we save ourselves. Four years have passed since Justin Campbell’s disappearance, a tragedy that rocked the small town of Southport, Texas. Did he run away? Was he kidnapped? Did he drown in the bay? As the Campbells search for answers, they struggle to hold what’s left of their family together. Then, one afternoon, the impossible happens. The police call to report that Justin has been found only miles away, in the neighboring town, and, most important, he appears to be fine. Though the reunion is a miracle, Justin’s homecoming exposes the deep rifts that have diminished his family, the wounds they all carry that may never fully heal. Trying to return to normal, his parents do their best to ease Justin back into his old life. But as thick summer heat takes hold, violent storms churn in the Gulf and in the Campbells’ hearts. When a reversal of fortune lays bare the family’s greatest fears—and offers perhaps the only hope for recovery—each of them must fight to keep the ties that bind them from permanently tearing apart. Praise for Remember Me Like This “An achingly beautiful and psychologically insightful portrait of a family . . . [a] fully immersive novel in which the language is luminous and the delivery almost flawless.”—The Boston Globe “Riveting . . . flows like it was plotted by Dennis Lehane but feels like it was written by Jonathan Franzen.”—Esquire “Tremendously moving . . . There’s real humanity in Johnston’s writing, and it’s heartening to spend time with these folks as they relearn how to be a family.”—Ron Charles, The Washington Post “Deeply empathetic and masterfully constructed . . . a novel that has both the feel of a great epic and the focused intensity of standing on a highwire.”—Salon

Stoner

Stoner
Author: John Williams
Publisher: New York Review of Books
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2015
Genre: Adultery
ISBN: 1590179285

"Born the child of a poor farmer in Missouri, William Stoner is urged by his parents to study new agriculture techniques at the state university. Digging instead into the texts of Milton and Shakespeare, Stoner falls under the spell of the unexpected pleasures of English literature, and decides to make it his life. Stoner is the story of that life"--

Pudd'nhead Wilson and Those Extraordinary Twins

Pudd'nhead Wilson and Those Extraordinary Twins
Author: Mark Twain
Publisher:
Total Pages: 314
Release: 1922
Genre: Conjoined twins
ISBN:

This is a story of a sober kind, picturing life in a little town of Missouri, half a century ago. The principal incidents relate to a slave of mixed blood and her almost pure white son, whom she substitutes for her master's baby. The slave by birth grows up in wealth and luxury, but turns out a peculiarly mean scoundrel, and perpetrating a crime, meets with due justice. The science of fingerprints is practically illustrated in detecting the fraud. The title character is the village atheist, whose maxims doubtless express much of the author's own disillusion.

Island of Vice

Island of Vice
Author: Richard Zacks
Publisher: Anchor
Total Pages: 552
Release: 2012-03-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 0385534027

A ROLLICKING NARRATIVE HISTORY OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT'S EMBATTLED TENURE AS POLICE COMMISSIONER OF CORRUPT, PLEASURE-LOVING NEW YORK CITY IN THE 1880s, AND HIS DOOMED MISSION TO WIPE OUT VICE In the 1890s, New York City was America’s financial, manufacturing, and entertainment capital, and also its preferred destination for sin, teeming with 40,000 prostitutes, glittering casinos, and all-night dives packed onto the island’s two dozen square miles. Police captains took hefty bribes to see nothing while reformers writhed in frustration. In Island of Vice, bestselling author Richard Zacks paints a vivid picture of the lewd underbelly of 1890s New York, and of Theodore Roosevelt, the cocksure crusading police commissioner who resolved to clean up the bustling metropolis, where the silk top hats of Wall Street bobbed past teenage prostitutes trawling Broadway. Writing with great wit and zest, Zacks explores how Roosevelt went head-to-head with corrupt Tammany Hall, took midnight rambles with muckraker Jacob Riis, banned barroom drinking on Sundays, and tried to convince 2 million New Yorkers to enjoy wholesome family fun. In doing so, Teddy made a ruthless enemy of police captain “Big Bill” Devery, who grew up in the Irish slums and never tired of fighting “tin soldier” reformers. Roosevelt saw his mission as a battle of good versus evil; Devery saw prudery standing in the way of fun and profit. When righteous Roosevelt’s vice crackdown started to succeed all too well, many of his own supporters began to turn on him. Cynical newspapermen mocked his quixotic quest, his own political party abandoned him, and Roosevelt discovered that New York loves its sin more than its salvation. Zacks’s meticulous research and wonderful sense of narrative verve bring this disparate cast of both pious and bawdy New Yorkers to life. With cameos by Stephen Crane, J. P. Morgan, and Joseph Pulitzer, plus a horde of very angry cops, Island of Vice is an unforgettable portrait of turn-of-the-century New York in all its seedy glory, and a brilliant portrayal of the energetic, confident, and zealous Roosevelt, one of America’s most colorful public figures.

The Rapture of the Nerds

The Rapture of the Nerds
Author: Cory Doctorow
Publisher: Macmillan
Total Pages: 353
Release: 2012-09-04
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0765329107

From the two defining personalities of post-cyberpunk SF, a brilliant collaboration to rival 1987's The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling

Fast Food Nation

Fast Food Nation
Author: Eric Schlosser
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Total Pages: 387
Release: 2012
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0547750331

An exploration of the fast food industry in the United States, from its roots to its long-term consequences.

I Am Someone

I Am Someone
Author: Aisling Creegan
Publisher: Gill & Macmillan Ltd
Total Pages: 206
Release: 2022-05-12
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0717193756

Aisling Creegan's childhood was dominated by an abusive, alcoholic mother, who tortured her at every turn. From insults and beatings to being threatened with a butcher's knife, Aisling endured unthinkable suffering at the hands of the woman who should have loved her unconditionally. Yet, in the midst of this trauma, Aisling relied on the one person she knew she could trust – herself. Possessed of an incredible imagination and remarkable resilience, Aisling found escape in the little things in life. Her power to imagine an alternative world enabled her to hold on and make it to adolescence and the freedom she had longed for since childhood. But the scars of the past take time to heal, and when Aisling suffered a breakdown it took her on a surprising path to freedom – and forgiveness. I Am Someone is an extraordinary memoir about female cruelty and – ultimately – female strength and endurance. 'Searingly honest ... brings you straight into the inner world of someone pushed to the limits' Lynn Ruane

Thankless in Death

Thankless in Death
Author: J. D. Robb
Publisher: Berkley
Total Pages: 418
Release: 2013
Genre: Dallas, Eve (Fictitious character)
ISBN: 0399164421

In the latest suspense thriller in the #1 New York Times bestselling series, the year 2060 is drawing to a close in New York City and loved ones are coming together for Thanksgiving. But sometimes the deepest hatreds seethe within the closest relationships, and blood flows faster than water… Lieutenant Eve Dallas has plenty to be grateful for this season. Hosting Roarke’s big Irish family for the holiday may be challenging, but it’s a joyful improvement on her own dark childhood. Other couples aren’t as lucky as Eve and Roarke. The Reinholds, for example, are lying in their home stabbed and bludgeoned almost beyond recognition. Those who knew them are stunned—and heartbroken by the evidence that they were murdered by their own son. Twenty-six-year-old Jerry hadn’t made a great impression on the bosses who fired him or the girlfriend who dumped him—but they didn’t think he was capable of this. Turns out Jerry is not only capable of brutality but taking a liking to it. With the money he’s stolen from his parents and a long list of grievances, he intends to finally make his mark on the world. Eve and her team already know the who, how, and why of this murder. What they need to pinpoint is where Jerry’s going to strike next.