From one of the most distinguished writers of modern Italy” (New York Review of Books), a classic novel of society in the midst of a war.This powerful novel is set against the background of Italy from 1939 to 1944, from the anxious months before the country entered the war, through the war years, to the allied victory with its trailing wake of anxiety, disappointment, and grief. In the foreground are the members of two families. One is rich, the other is ...

Contempt is a brilliant and unsettling work by one of the revolutionary masters of modern European literature. All the qualities for which Alberto Moravia is justly famous—his cool clarity of expression, his exacting attention to psychological complexity and social pretension, his still-striking openness about sex—are evident in this story of a failing marriage. Contempt (which was to inspire Jean-Luc Godard’s no-less-celebrated film) is an unflinching examination of desp...

The novels that the great Italian writer Alberto Moravia wrote in the years following World War II represent an extraordinary survey of the range of human behavior in a fragmented modern society. Boredom, the story of a failed artist and pampered son of a rich family who becomes dangerously attached to a young model, examines the complex relations between money, sex, and imperiled masculinity. This powerful and disturbing study in the pathology of modern life is one of the masterw...

“Bowden Simón captures Cuba’s enduring allure in her debut memoir . . . She uncovers the indomitable soul of the island and finds a balm for her own” (Denise DiFulco, former senior editor, Latina magazine).La Americana is the story of Melanie Bowden Simón, who, at the age of twenty-five, left her job at Tina Brown’s Talk magazine following the death of her mother and decided to take a vacation in Havana, Cuba, with a frie...

Magic and transformation in the beauty of a Ukrainian villageFor seven-year-old Angela, happiness is exploring the verdant countryside around her home in western Ukraine.Her imagination carries her into the spirits of passing birds, into the breath of the wind, into the leaves of her springtime garden.Everything changes when, one morning, she spies her mother crying. As she tries to find out what lies behind the sadness, she is drawn on an ...

New York Times Bestseller: A man who gained the world but lost his soul faces a critical midlife crisis in this suspenseful and inspiring novel about love and forgiveness.On a stormy, windswept night, Guy Jerald tried to kill himself. But he did not die. Now, the fifty-five-year-old Pennsylvania powerbroker and business titan—a living example of the American Dream—lies in a bed in a psychiatric hospital. He is on suicide watch, barely able to recognize his ...

A "moving and memorable" novel about a cafe where everyone has a story to tell from the award-winning author of The Women of Brewster Place ( The Boston Globe).In post–World War II Brooklyn, on a quiet backstreet, there's a little place that draws people from all over—not for the food, and definitely not for the coffee. An in-between place that's only there when you need it, Bailey's Cafe is a crossroads where patrons stay for a while before making...

The state of California votes on secession in the wake of a divisive presidential election in this gripping, prescient novel of marriage, family, and the profound moments that shape our lives.Doctor Julie Walker has just signed her divorce papers when she receives news that her younger sister, Heather, has gone into labor. Though theirs is a strained relationship, Julie sets out for the hospital to be at her sister’s side—no easy task since the streets of San Franc...

Three powerful novels of racism, lust, and poverty in the rural South by a controversial national bestselling author.Bigotry, poverty, social injustice, and sexual squalor in the Deep South—hallmarks of one of the most daring and phenomenally popular bestselling novelists of the twentieth-century. Here, in one volume, are three of his best-known works. "None of [his] characters would be caught dead in a novel by John Steinbeck, Carson McCullers, or Eudora Welty" (

A "wonderful novel" steeped in the folklore of the South from the New York Times–bestselling author of The Women of Brewster Place ( The Washington Post Book World).On an island off the coast of Georgia, there's a place where superstition is more potent than any trappings of the modern world. In Willow Springs, the formidable Mama Day uses her powers to heal. But her great niece, Cocoa, can't wait to get away.In New York City, Coco...

In a California courtroom, seventeen-year-old Nou Lee's mind reels with what she is about to do. What she must do to survive. She reflects on the splintered path that led to this moment, beginning twelve years ago in 1978, when her Hmong family escaped from Laos after the Communist takeover. The story follows the Lees from a squalid refugee camp in Thailand to a new life in Minnesota and eventually California. Family members struggle to survive in a strange foreign land, haunted by the sca...

For fans of authors like Barbara Kingsolver and Leif Enger, a stunning new voice in contemporary literary fiction."Tragedy and blessing. Leave them alone long enough, and it gets real hard to tell them apart."Elena Alvarez is living a cursed life. From the deadly fire she accidentally set as a child, to her mother's abandonment, and now to an unwanted pregnancy, she knows better than most that small actions can have terrible consequences. Driven to...