The Very Long, Very Strange Life of Isaac Dahl

The Very Long, Very Strange Life of Isaac Dahl PDF Author: Bart Yates
Publisher: A John Scognamiglio Book
ISBN: 1496750470
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
Both sweeping and exquisitely intimate, award-winning author Bart Yates blends historical fact and fiction in a surprising, thought-provoking saga spanning 12 significant days across nearly 100 years in the life of a single man, beginning in 1920s Utah. “Each day is a story, whether or not that story makes any damn sense or is worth telling to anyone else.” At the age of ninety-six, Isaac Dahl sits down to write his memoir. For Isaac, an accomplished journalist and historian, finding the right words to convey events is never a problem. But this book will be different from anything he has written before. Focusing on twelve different days, each encapsulated in a chapter, Isaac hopes to distill the very essence of his life. There are days that begin like any other, only to morph through twists of fate. An avalanche strikes Bingham, Utah, and eight-year-old Isaac and his twin sister, Agnes, survive when they are trapped in an upside-down bathtub. Other days stand apart in history—including a day in 1942, when Isaac, stationed on the USS Houston in the Java Sea as a rookie correspondent, confronts the full horror of war. And there are days spent simply, with his lifelong friend, Bo, or with Danny, the younger man whose love transforms Isaac’s later years—precious days with significance that grows clear only in hindsight. From the Oklahoma Dust Bowl to a Mississippi school at the apex of the civil rights movement, Isaac tells his story with insight, wisdom, and emotional depth. The Very Long, Very Strange Life of Isaac Dahl is a wonderful, singular narrative that will spark conversation and reflection—a reminder that there is no such thing as an ordinary life, and the greatest accomplishment of all is to live and love fully

The Very Long, Very Strange Life of Isaac Dahl

The Very Long, Very Strange Life of Isaac Dahl PDF Author: Bart Yates
Publisher: A John Scognamiglio Book
ISBN: 1496750470
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 241

Get Book Here

Book Description
Both sweeping and exquisitely intimate, award-winning author Bart Yates blends historical fact and fiction in a surprising, thought-provoking saga spanning 12 significant days across nearly 100 years in the life of a single man, beginning in 1920s Utah. “Each day is a story, whether or not that story makes any damn sense or is worth telling to anyone else.” At the age of ninety-six, Isaac Dahl sits down to write his memoir. For Isaac, an accomplished journalist and historian, finding the right words to convey events is never a problem. But this book will be different from anything he has written before. Focusing on twelve different days, each encapsulated in a chapter, Isaac hopes to distill the very essence of his life. There are days that begin like any other, only to morph through twists of fate. An avalanche strikes Bingham, Utah, and eight-year-old Isaac and his twin sister, Agnes, survive when they are trapped in an upside-down bathtub. Other days stand apart in history—including a day in 1942, when Isaac, stationed on the USS Houston in the Java Sea as a rookie correspondent, confronts the full horror of war. And there are days spent simply, with his lifelong friend, Bo, or with Danny, the younger man whose love transforms Isaac’s later years—precious days with significance that grows clear only in hindsight. From the Oklahoma Dust Bowl to a Mississippi school at the apex of the civil rights movement, Isaac tells his story with insight, wisdom, and emotional depth. The Very Long, Very Strange Life of Isaac Dahl is a wonderful, singular narrative that will spark conversation and reflection—a reminder that there is no such thing as an ordinary life, and the greatest accomplishment of all is to live and love fully

The Language of Love and Loss

The Language of Love and Loss PDF Author: Bart Yates
Publisher: A John Scognamiglio Book
ISBN: 1496741250
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
When his difficult mother is diagnosed with ALS, a sharp-witted yet sensitive artist reluctantly returns to his New Hampshire hometown – and all the ghosts he left behind. Fans of Andrew Sean Greer, Bryan Washington, and Jonathan Tropper will adore this outrageously funny, deeply touching, buoyant novel from the award-winning author of Leave Myself Behind. As it turns out, you can go home again. But sometimes, you really, really don’t want to . . . Home, for Noah York, is Oakland, New Hampshire, the sleepy little town where Noah’s mother, Virginia, had a psychotic breakdown and Noah got beaten to a pulp as a teenager. Then there were the good times—and Noah’s not sure which ones are more painful to recall. Now thirty-seven and eking out a living as an artist in Providence, Rhode Island, Noah looks much the same—and swears just as colorfully—as he did in high school. Virginia has become a wildly successful poet who made him the subject of her most famous poem, “The Lost Soul,” a label Noah will never live down. And J.D., the one who got away—because Noah stupidly drove him away—is in a loving marriage with a successful, attractive man whom Noah despises wholeheartedly. Is it any surprise Noah wishes he could ignore his mother’s summons to come visit? But Virginia has shattering news to deliver, and a request he can’t refuse. Soon, Noah will track down the sister and extended family he never knew existed, try to keep his kleptomaniac cousin out of jail, feud with a belligerent neighbor, confront J.D.’s jealous husband—and face J.D. himself, the ache from Noah’s past that never fades. . . . All the while, contending with his brilliant, unpredictable mother.

Leave Myself Behind

Leave Myself Behind PDF Author: Bart Yates
Publisher: Kensington Publishing Corp.
ISBN: 0758290020
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
“Noah’s voice is more than just honest or original; it’s real.” --The Plain Dealer THE WORLD ACCORDING TO NOAH YORK: “Anybody who tells you he doesn’t have mixed feelings about his mother is either stupid or a liar.” “Real life seldom makes me cry. The only thing that gets to me is the occasional Kodak commercial.” “Sometimes I feel like Michelangelo, chiseling away at all the crap until nothing is left but the exquisite thing in the middle that no one else sees until it’s uncovered for them.” “Anyway...” Meet seventeen-year-old Noah York, the hilariously profane, searingly honest, completely engaging narrator of Bart Yates’s astonishing debut novel. With a mouth like a truck driver and eyes that see through the lies of the world, Noah is heading into a life that’s only getting more complicated by the day. His dead father is fading into a snapshot memory. His mother, the famous psycho-poet, has relocated them from Chicago to a rural New England town that looks like an advertisement for small-town America—a bad advertisement. He can’t seem to start a sentence without using the “f” word. And now, the very house he lives in is coming apart at the seams—literally—torn down bit by bit as he and his mother renovate the old Victorian. But deep within the walls lie secrets from a previous life—mason jars stuffed with bits of clothing, scraps of writing, old photographs—disturbing clues to the mysterious existence of a woman who disappeared decades before. While his mother grows more obsessed and unsettled by the discovery of these homemade reliquaries, Noah fights his own troubling obsession with the boy next door, the enigmatic J.D. It is J.D. who begins to quietly anchor Noah to his new life. J.D., who is hiding terrible, haunting pain behind an easy smile and a carefree attitude. Part Portnoy, part Holden Caulfield, never less than truthful, and always fully human, Noah York is a touching and unforgettable character. His story is one of hope and heartbreak, love and redemption, of holding on to old wounds when new skin is what’s needed, and of the power of growing up whole once every secret has been set free. “Noah’s blunt, funny and dead-on narrative will lend this memorable tale of young-but-cynical love a fresh resonance with readers of all ages, gay or straight, male or female.” --Brian Malloy, author of The Year of Ice

The Third Hill North of Town

The Third Hill North of Town PDF Author: Noah Bly
Publisher: Kensington Books
ISBN: 0758290772
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
In 1962, escaped 54-year-old mental patient Julianna Dapper is joined by a shy African-American teenage boy and a young outlaw hitchhiker on her journey back to her childhood home in Missouri. Original.

The Brothers Bishop

The Brothers Bishop PDF Author: Bart Yates
Publisher: Kensington Books
ISBN: 9780758209122
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
During the summer, a two-week party, rife with drunken revelations, bitter jealousies, explosive passions, and reconciliations, forces two very different brothers--Tommy, a free spirit, and Nathan, a high school English teacher--to confront their tragic past, which changes both of their lives forever. Original.

The Distance Between Us

The Distance Between Us PDF Author: Noah Bly
Publisher: Kensington Books
ISBN: 1496702514
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 316

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Book Description
In The Distance Between Us, Noah Bly presents a blistering portrait of a troubled family, of bonds that can be battered but never broken, and of the friendships that can make us whole again. Hester Parker resides in an elegant Victorian house in the town of Bolton, Illinois. She spends her evenings listening to the lush tones of Mahler and Chopin, drinking sub-par Merlot, and reflecting on a life that has suddenly fallen apart. At seventy-one, Hester is as brilliant and sharp-tongued as ever, capable of inspiring her music students to soaring heights or reducing them to tears with a single comment. But her wit can’t hide the bitterness that comes with loss—the loss of her renowned violinist husband, Arthur Donovan, who left her for another woman, and the loss of her career as a concert pianist after injuring her wrist. In this home that holds so many memories, Hester and Arthur raised three volatile children—Paul, a talented and neurotic cellist, Caitlin, an accomplished literary professor who inspires both dread and worship among her students, and Jeremy, sweet, spirited, and as musically gifted as his parents. Though Caitlin and Paul still live in Bolton, both have taken Arthur’s side in the divorce and rarely see their mother. When Hester decides to rent out the attic apartment to Alex, a young college student, she has no idea of the impact he will have on her life and her family. Good-natured and awkward, with secrets of his own, Alex becomes an unlikely confidant and a means of reconnecting with the world outside Hester’s window. But his presence also exposes old memories and grief that Hester has tried to bury. Over the course of one remarkable month, Hester will confront angry accusations, long-hidden jealousies, and the inescapable truth that tore her family apart and might, against all odds, help reconcile them again. And her brief friendship with Alex will leave each with a surprising legacy—acceptance of the past, a seed of comfort in the present, and hope for the future, wherever it may lead. Tender and funny, heartbreaking and wise, The Distance Between Us is a masterful evocation of family and friendship, of the pain that goes hand-in-hand with love, and of the grace and wisdom that remain when heartbreak finally subsides.

Farther Away

Farther Away PDF Author: Jonathan Franzen
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 0374708762
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 243

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Book Description
Jonathan Franzen's Freedom was the runaway most-discussed novel of 2010, an ambitious and searching engagement with life in America in the twenty-first century. In The New York Times Book Review, Sam Tanenhaus proclaimed it "a masterpiece of American fiction" and lauded its illumination, "through the steady radiance of its author's profound moral intelligence, [of] the world we thought we knew." In Farther Away, which gathers together essays and speeches written mostly in the past five years, Franzen returns with renewed vigor to the themes, both human and literary, that have long preoccupied him. Whether recounting his violent encounter with bird poachers in Cyprus, examining his mixed feelings about the suicide of his friend and rival David Foster Wallace, or offering a moving and witty take on the ways that technology has changed how people express their love, these pieces deliver on Franzen's implicit promise to conceal nothing. On a trip to China to see first-hand the environmental devastation there, he doesn't omit mention of his excitement and awe at the pace of China's economic development; the trip becomes a journey out of his own prejudice and moral condemnation. Taken together, these essays trace the progress of unique and mature mind wrestling with itself, with literature, and with some of the most important issues of our day. Farther Away is remarkable, provocative, and necessary.

The Confession Club

The Confession Club PDF Author: Elizabeth Berg
Publisher: Ballantine Books
ISBN: 1984855182
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
USA TODAY BESTSELLER • An uplifting novel about friendship, surprising revelations, and a second chance at love, from the New York Times bestselling author of The Story of Arthur Truluv. When a group of friends in Mason, Missouri, decide to start a monthly supper club, they get more than they bargained for. The plan for congenial evenings—talking, laughing, and sharing recipes, homemade food, and wine—abruptly changes course one night when one of the women reveals something startlingly intimate. The supper club then becomes Confession Club, and the women gather weekly to share not only dinners but embarrassing misdeeds, deep insecurities, and long-held regrets. They invite Iris Winters and Maddy Harris to join, and their timing couldn't be better. Iris is conflicted about her feelings for a charming but troubled man, and Maddy has come back home from New York to escape a problem too big to handle alone. The club offers exactly the kind of support they need to help them make some difficult decisions. The Confession Club is charming, heartwarming, and inspiring. And as in the previous books that take place in Mason, readers will find friendship, community, and kindness on full display. Praise for The Confession Club “[A] feel-good testament to taking risks, falling love, and reinvention . . . Berg effortlessly wraps her arms around this busy universe of quirky characters with heartbreaking secrets and unflagging faith. . . . Readers new to Berg’s Mason will be dazzled by this bright and fascinating story, and fans will be cheering for the next volume.”—Publishers Weekly

Ellie and the Harpmaker

Ellie and the Harpmaker PDF Author: Hazel Prior
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1984803808
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
A rich, heartwarming and acclaimed debut novel that reminds us that sometimes you find love in the most unexpected places, now in paperback. Dan Hollis lives a happy, solitary life carving exquisite Celtic harps in his barn in the countryside of the English moors. Here he can be himself, away from social situations that he doesn’t always get right or completely understand. On the anniversary of her beloved father’s death, Ellie Jacobs takes a walk in the woods and comes across Dan’s barn. She is enchanted by his collection. Dan gives her a harp made of cherrywood to match her cherry socks. He stores it for her, ready for whenever she’d like to take lessons. Ellie begins visiting Dan almost daily and quickly learns that he isn’t like other people. He makes her sandwiches precisely cut into triangles and repeatedly counts the (seventeen) steps of the wooden staircase to the upstairs practice room. Ellie soon realizes Dan isn’t just different; in many ways, his world is better, and he gives her a fresh perspective on her own life.

Night of Miracles

Night of Miracles PDF Author: Elizabeth Berg
Publisher: Ballantine Books
ISBN: 0525509518
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
The feel-good book of the year: a delightful novel of friendship, community, and the way small acts of kindness can change your life, by the bestselling author of The Story of Arthur Truluv Lucille Howard is getting on in years, but she stays busy. Thanks to the inspiration of her dearly departed friend Arthur Truluv, she has begun to teach baking classes, sharing the secrets to her delicious classic Southern yellow cake, the perfect pinwheel cookies, and other sweet essentials. Her classes have become so popular that she’s hired Iris, a new resident of Mason, Missouri, as an assistant. Iris doesn’t know how to bake but she needs to keep her mind off a big decision she sorely regrets. When a new family moves in next door and tragedy strikes, Lucille begins to look out for Lincoln, their son. Lincoln’s parents aren’t the only ones in town facing hard choices and uncertain futures. In these difficult times, the residents of Mason come together and find the true power of community—just when they need it the most. “Elizabeth Berg’s characters jump right off the page and into your heart” said Fannie Flagg about The Story of Arthur Truluv. The same could be said about Night of Miracles, a heartwarming novel that reminds us that the people we come to love are often the ones we don’t expect. Praise for Night of Miracles “Happy, sad, sweet and slyly funny, [Night of Miracles] celebrates the nourishing comfort of community and provides a delightfully original take on the cycles of life.”—People (Book of the Week) “Find refuge in Mason, a place blessedly free of the political chaos we now know as ‘real life.’ In Berg’s charming but far from shallow alternative reality, the focus is on the things that make life worth living: the human connections that light the way through the dark of aging, bereavement, illness and our own mistakes. . . . As the endearing, odd-lot characters of Mason, Missouri, coalesce into new families, dessert is served: a plateful of chocolate-and-vanilla pinwheel cookies for the soul.”—USA Today “Full of empathy and charm, every chapter infuses the heart with a renewed sense of hope.” —Woman’s World