Personal recollections from André Gide on a man who profoundly influenced his work—Oscar WildeAndré Gide, a towering figure in French letters, draws upon his friendship with Oscar Wilde to sketch a compelling portrait of the tragic, doomed author, both celebrated and shunned in his time. Rather than compile a complete biography, Gide invites us to discover Wilde as he did—from their first meeting in 1891 to their final parting just two years before Wilde's death—al...

One of the leading twentieth-century French existentialist philosophers examines how human emotions shape our existence.In The Emotions: Outline of a Theory, French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre attempts to understand the role emotions play in the human psyche. Sartre analyzes fear, lust, anguish, and melancholy while asserting that human beings begin to develop emotional capabilities from a very early age, which helps them identify and understand the emotio...

An inspiring discourse on the power of music from one of the twentieth century's most important figures, André GideAndré Gide, one of the great intellectuals of the twentieth century and a devoted pianist, invites readers to reevaluate Frédéric Chopin as a composer "betrayed . . . deeply, intimately, totally violated" by a music community that had fundamentally misinterpreted his work. As a profound admirer of Chopin's "promenade of discoveries," Gide intersperses ...

"A dazzling masterwork" of sex, death, love, and suffering in WWII Vichy France by the infamous novelist and author of Our Lady of the Flowers (Leo Bersani, The New York Times Book Review).One of the great literary outlaws of the 20th century, Jean Genet was committed to challenging the complacent middle-class morality of his native France. His apocalyptic, pornographic, autobiographical novel " Funeral Rites is quite possibly an evil book...

This work lays bare the early brilliance and philosophical conflicts of André Gide, a towering figure in French literatureNobel Prize–winning writer André Gide lays bare his adolescent psyche in this early work, first conceived and published as part of his novel The Notebooks of André Walter, completed when he was just twenty years old. This profoundly personal work draws heavily on his religious upbringing and private journals to tell the story of a young...

The Devil You Know is the follow-up volume to Farrell’s critically acclaimed debut collection, Sugar Bush & Other Stories. These stories deal with sex, love, work, birth, and death in alternately moving, shocking, funny, and at times devastating ways. Whether these characters are facing the death of a parent, bad love choices, the possibility of unwanted pregnancy, the rupture of friendships, teen violence, or the exploration of sado-masochistic sex, Farrell exposes the...

“An extraordinary achievement . . . a vision of hell so stern it cannot be chuckled or raged aside.”—The New York Times Book ReviewA classic of postwar American literature, Last Exit to Brooklyn created shockwaves upon its release in 1964 with its raw, vibrant language and startling revelations of New York City's underbelly.The prostitutes, drunks, addicts, and johns of Selby’s Brooklyn are fierce and lonely creatures, desperately searchin...

Mrs. Dalloway takes place over the course of a single day in a woman's life in 1920's London. There are flowers to buy, outfits to choose, but also a visit from a past lover, and the tragic fate of a young war veteran who cannot adjust to life in post-war London. Virginia Woolf's supple and mesmerizing account of an ordinary day draws the reader into the minds, perceptions, and emotions of an astonishingly varied and vivid cast of characters. Woolf reminds us that each day, hour, ...

The National Book Award–winning author of Hell of a Book shares "a breathtaking novel that navigates emotional minefields with realism and grace" ( Kirkus Reviews, starred review).Harold and Lucille Hargrave's eight-year-old son, Jacob, died tragically in 1966. In their old age they've settled comfortably into life without him. . . . Until one day Jacob mysteriously appears on their doorstep—flesh and blood, still eight years old.All over th...

In this true story, Armande Martel, a young nun from Quebec, is arrested by the Germans in 1940 during a stay at her religious order’s mother house in Brittany. She spends the war years in a German concentration camp. After her return to Canada, she leaves the Church, finds the love of her life in Montreal, and adopts Lise Dion.Growing up, Lise is familiar with only a few facts of her mother’s past. It’s when she clears her mother’s small apartment after her death that Lise Dion di...

1996: Grace, a psychiatrist, juggles a suicidal boyfriend and a young patient's impending abortion.2002: Annie, a struggling actress, takes pity on a homeless girl and invites her into her New York apartment.2006: Mitch, a divorced counsellor, finds that listening to other people's problems takes his mind off his own.Ten years. Three lives. One truth: helping other people is infinitely simpler than helping yourself.

When Savannah, Georgia’s most hated woman is set free, one mother’s long ago crime ignites a new killing spree in #1 New York Times bestselling author Lisa Jackson’s blockbuster Southern thriller featuring crime writer Nikki Gillette and Detective Pierce Reed. Now in paperback and perfect for fans of Melinda Leigh, Sandra Brown, and Lisa Gardner.The most hated woman in Savannah, Georgia, is about to be set free. Twenty years ago, Blondell O’Henry was convi...