Another Place You've Never Been

Another Place You've Never Been PDF Author: Rebecca Kauffman
Publisher: Catapult
ISBN: 164009007X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
This "undeniably moving and emotionally true" debut novel offers the emotional complexity and narrative scope of A Visit from the Goon Squad and resonates with the strong mystical nature of Swamplandia (Publishers Weekly, starred review). Most of us have experienced what it’s like to know what someone is going to say right before they say it. Or perhaps you have been shocked by the irrefutable phenomena of coincidence, when your life intersects with another’s in the most unlikely way. In gripping prose marked by stark simplicity, Another Place You’ve Never Been by debut novelist Rebecca Kauffman explores the intersection of human experience amidst the minutiae of everyday life. In her mid-thirties and still living in her hometown Buffalo, NY, Tracy spends most days at the restaurant where she works as a hostess, despite her aspirations of a career that would make use of her creative talents. Tracy’s life is explored not only though her own personal point of view, but also through the viewpoints of other characters, wherein Tracy may only make a peripheral appearance or even emerge at different periods in her life. At its core, Another Place You've Never Been is a broad investigation of such bold ideas as the possibility that any person, at any time, in any place, could find themselves shivering in the presence of great and ancient forces; and the notion that love is perhaps "far less voluntary" than we might believe it to be.

Another Place You've Never Been

Another Place You've Never Been PDF Author: Rebecca Kauffman
Publisher: Catapult
ISBN: 164009007X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
This "undeniably moving and emotionally true" debut novel offers the emotional complexity and narrative scope of A Visit from the Goon Squad and resonates with the strong mystical nature of Swamplandia (Publishers Weekly, starred review). Most of us have experienced what it’s like to know what someone is going to say right before they say it. Or perhaps you have been shocked by the irrefutable phenomena of coincidence, when your life intersects with another’s in the most unlikely way. In gripping prose marked by stark simplicity, Another Place You’ve Never Been by debut novelist Rebecca Kauffman explores the intersection of human experience amidst the minutiae of everyday life. In her mid-thirties and still living in her hometown Buffalo, NY, Tracy spends most days at the restaurant where she works as a hostess, despite her aspirations of a career that would make use of her creative talents. Tracy’s life is explored not only though her own personal point of view, but also through the viewpoints of other characters, wherein Tracy may only make a peripheral appearance or even emerge at different periods in her life. At its core, Another Place You've Never Been is a broad investigation of such bold ideas as the possibility that any person, at any time, in any place, could find themselves shivering in the presence of great and ancient forces; and the notion that love is perhaps "far less voluntary" than we might believe it to be.

How to Talk About Places You've Never Been

How to Talk About Places You've Never Been PDF Author: Pierre Bayard
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 162040138X
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
Written in the irreverent style that made How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read a critical and commercial success, Pierre Bayard takes readers on a trip around the world, giving us essential guidance on how to talk about all those fantastic places we've never been. Practical, funny, and thought-provoking, How to Talk About Places You've Never Been will delight and inform armchair globetrotters and jet-setters, all while never having to leave the comfort of the living room. Bayard examines the art of the “non-journey,” a tradition that a succession of writers and thinkers, unconcerned with moving away from their home turf, have employed in order to encounter the foreign cultures they wish to know and talk about. He describes concrete situations in which the reader might find himself having to speak about places he's never been, and he chronicles some of his own experiences and offers practical advice. How to Talk About Places You Haven't Been is a compelling and delightful book that will expand any travel enthusiast's horizon well beyond the places it's even possible to visit in a single lifetime.

The Gunners

The Gunners PDF Author: Rebecca Kauffman
Publisher: Catapult
ISBN: 1640091947
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
A group of childhood friends reunites after tragedy strikes one of their own in this “riveting portrayal of the joys and mysteries of growing up, and of friendship itself”—with echoes of Freaks and Geeks and The Big Chill (People). ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: O, The Oprah Magazine • Entertainment Weekly • Southern Living • Huffington Post • Esquire • Book Riot • Harper’s Bazaar • NYLON • Real Simple Following her wonderfully received first novel, Another Place You’ve Never Been, Rebecca Kauffman returns with Mikey Callahan, a thirty–year–old who is suffering from the clouded vision of macular degeneration. He struggles to establish human connections—even his emotional life is a blur. As the novel begins, he is reconnecting with “The Gunners,” his group of childhood friends, after one of their members has committed suicide. Sally had distanced herself from all of them before ending her life, and she died harboring secrets about the group and its individuals. Mikey especially needs to confront dark secrets about his own past and his father. How much of this darkness accounts for the emotional stupor Mikey is suffering from as he reaches his maturity? And can The Gunners, prompted by Sally’s death, find their way to a new day? The core of this adventure, made by Mikey, Alice, Lynn, Jimmy, and Sam, becomes a search for the core of truth, friendship, and forgiveness. A quietly startling, beautiful book, The Gunners engages us with vividly unforgettable characters, and advances Rebecca Kauffman’s place as one of the most important young writers of her generation.

Love Like You've Never Been Hurt

Love Like You've Never Been Hurt PDF Author: Jentezen Franklin
Publisher: Chosen Books
ISBN: 1493413511
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 229

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Book Description
The human heart was created with a great capacity to love. But along with that comes a great capacity to feel pain. There is no denying that those who love us, who are closest to us, can wound us the most profoundly. That kind of pain can be difficult, if not impossible, to overcome. And it can feel even more impossible to continue loving in the face of it. Yet that is exactly what we are called to do. Sharing his own story of personal pain, pastor and New York Times bestselling author Jentezen Franklin shows us how to find the strength, courage, and motivation to set aside the hurt, see others as God sees them, and reach out in love. Through biblical and modern-day stories, he discusses different types of relational disappointment and heartache, and answers questions such as Why should I trust again? and How can I ever really forgive? The walls we build around our hearts to cut us off from pain are the very walls that block us from seeing hope, receiving healing, and feeling love. Here are the tools and inspiration you need to tear down those walls, work through your wounds, repair damaged relationships, and learn to love like you've never been hurt.

Places We've Never Been

Places We've Never Been PDF Author: Kasie West
Publisher: Delacorte Press
ISBN: 0593176324
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
A sweet and swoony contemporary Young Adult novel about a cross-country family road trip that puts one girl and her childhood best friend on an unexpected road to romance! Norah Simons’s summer road trip is going to be absolutely perfect. She’s leaving California for the first time in her life. She’s interviewing at her dream college (the place for future video game animators). And she’s reconnecting with her childhood friend, Skyler Hutton—the boy who taught her to draw, the boy she’s never forgotten about after all these years. What could go wrong? Cue the RV filled with three siblings, two moms, one bathroom, and years of memories, and suddenly this trip isn’t quite the vacation Norah was hoping for—especially when Skyler makes it clear he would rather be anywhere but here. But Norah isn’t one to give up without a fight. And as the families travel from desert heat to mountain vista, sparks begin to fly between these two ex–best friends—after all, friendship doesn’t just fade away. Does it? Kasie West delivers another romantic and heartfelt story of family, first love, and how expanding your horizons can take you places you’ve never dreamed of.

There Will Never Be Another You

There Will Never Be Another You PDF Author: Carolyn See
Publisher: Ballantine Books
ISBN: 0345502396
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
“Carolyn See has written a novel alive with wit and love and energy–a book about things falling apart that turns out to be a day at the beach. . . . Pure joy.”–Joan Didion Accomplished author Carolyn See triumphantly returns to fiction–seven years after her last novel was published–with this provocative, vibrantly written new novel. Set in a security-obsessed world that eerily mirrors our own, There Will Never Be Another You captures the paranoia and propaganda of a volatile time and place in which humanity’s divisions run deep and society sits on edge–and one Southern California family faces profound crises from within and without. It is a moment in the near future when the global threat of terror has cultivated rage, apathy, and panic across the country. People fear that “anybody could be armed, or have a bomb. Or a disease. Or all three.” For Phil, a dermatologist at the UCLA hospital, it is a time of unease and uncertainty, in stark contrast to the days when he coasted through life on his good looks, a modicum of charm, and only haphazard effort. Now Phil must deal with his mother, Edith, who’s been grieving over the death of her husband for several years and only recently has thought to reconnect with a family that seems to have other priorities. Phil’s energies are already divvied up among his belligerent children, his wayward wife, and his unreliable mistress. Then Phil’s life takes a dramatic turn: He is recruited for a top-secret team whose task is to act quickly in the event of a biological or chemical attack. The assignment just may provide him with a renewed sense of purpose. Yet dire circumstances force Phil to make profound decisions that will affect not just himself and his loved ones but the entire country. It is a chance for an ordinary man to rise from mediocrity to heroism–and at which failure would prove to be catastrophic. Foreboding and all too plausible, There Will Never Be Another You is a cautionary novel of family and society, where a naïve past is replaced by a menacing future in which distinguishing between reality and imagination proves to be more challenging than ever.

I Know This Much Is True

I Know This Much Is True PDF Author: Wally Lamb
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780060391621
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 884

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Book Description
With his stunning debut novel, She's Come Undone, Wally Lamb won the adulation of critics and readers with his mesmerizing tale of one woman's painful yet triumphant journey of self-discovery. Now, this brilliantly talented writer returns with I Know This Much Is True, a heartbreaking and poignant multigenerational saga of the reproductive bonds of destruction and the powerful force of forgiveness. A masterpiece that breathtakingly tells a story of alienation and connection, power and abuse, devastation and renewal--this novel is a contemporary retelling of an ancient Hindu myth. A proud king must confront his demons to achieve salvation. Change yourself, the myth instructs, and you will inhabit a renovated world. When you're the same brother of a schizophrenic identical twin, the tricky thing about saving yourself is the blood it leaves on your bands--the little inconvenience of the look-alike corpse at your feet. And if you're into both survival of the fittest and being your brother's keeper--if you've promised your dying mother--then say so long to sleep and hello to the middle of the night. Grab a book or a beer. Get used to Letterman's gap-toothed smile of the absurd, or the view of the bedroom ceiling, or the influence of random selection. Take it from a godless insomniac. Take it from the uncrazy twin--the guy who beat the biochemical rap. Dominick Birdsey's entire life has been compromised and constricted by anger and fear, by the paranoid schizophrenic twin brother he both deeply loves and resents, and by the past they shared with their adoptive father, Ray, a spit-and-polish ex-Navy man (the five-foot-six-inch sleeping giant who snoozed upstairs weekdays in the spare room and built submarines at night), and their long-suffering mother, Concettina, a timid woman with a harelip that made her shy and self-conscious: She holds a loose fist to her face to cover her defective mouth--her perpetual apology to the world for a birth defect over which she'd had no control. Born in the waning moments of 1949 and the opening minutes of 1950, the twins are physical mirror images who grow into separate yet connected entities: the seemingly strong and protective yet fearful Dominick, his mother's watchful "monkey"; and the seemingly weak and sweet yet noble Thomas, his mother's gentle "bunny." From childhood, Dominick fights for both separation and wholeness--and ultimately self-protection--in a house of fear dominated by Ray, a bully who abuses his power over these stepsons whose biological father is a mystery. I was still afraid of his anger but saw how he punished weakness--pounced on it. Out of self-preservation I hid my fear, Dominick confesses. As for Thomas, he just never knew how to play defense. He just didn't get it. But Dominick's talent for survival comes at an enormous cost, including the breakup of his marriage to the warm, beautiful Dessa, whom he still loves. And it will be put to the ultimate test when Thomas, a Bible-spouting zealot, commits an unthinkable act that threatens the tenuous balance of both his and Dominick's lives. To save himself, Dominick must confront not only the pain of his past but the dark secrets he has locked deep within himself, and the sins of his ancestors--a quest that will lead him beyond the confines of his blue-collar New England town to the volcanic foothills of Sicily 's Mount Etna, where his ambitious and vengefully proud grandfather and a namesake Domenico Tempesta, the sostegno del famiglia, was born. Each of the stories Ma told us about Papa reinforced the message that he was the boss, that he ruled the roost, that what he said went. Searching for answers, Dominick turns to the whispers of the dead, to the pages of his grandfather's handwritten memoir, The History of Domenico Onofrio Tempesta, a Great Man from Humble Beginnings. Rendered with touches of magic realism, Domenico's fablelike tale--in which monkeys enchant and religious statues weep--becomes the old man's confession--an unwitting legacy of contrition that reveals the truth's of Domenico's life, Dominick learns that power, wrongly used, defeats the oppressor as well as the oppressed, and now, picking through the humble shards of his deconstructed life, he will search for the courage and love to forgive, to expiate his and his ancestors' transgressions, and finally to rebuild himself beyond the haunted shadow of his twin. Set against the vivid panoply of twentieth-century America and filled with richly drawn, memorable characters, this deeply moving and thoroughly satisfying novel brings to light humanity's deepest needs and fears, our aloneness, our desire for love and acceptance, our struggle to survive at all costs. Joyous, mystical, and exquisitely written, I Know This Much Is True is an extraordinary reading experience that will leave no reader untouched.

With the Fire on High

With the Fire on High PDF Author: Elizabeth Acevedo
Publisher: Hardie Grant Publishing
ISBN: 1743586329
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 348

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Book Description
From New York Times bestselling author of POET X comes a story of a girl with talent, pride and a little bit of magic that keeps her fire burning bright. Ever since she got pregnant during freshman year, Emoni Santiago’s life has been about making the tough decisions, doing what has to be done for her daughter and her abuela. The one place she can let all that go is in the kitchen. There, she lets her hands tell her what to cook, listening to her intuition and adding a little something magical every time, turning her food into straight-up goodness. Even though she’s always dreamed of working in a kitchen after she graduates, Emoni knows that it’s not worth her time to pursue the impossible. But then an opportunity presents itself to not only enrol in a culinary arts class in her high school, but also to travel abroad to Spain for an immersion program. Emoni knows that her decisions post high school have to be practical ones, but despite the rules she’s made for her life — and everyone else’s rules that she refuses to play by — once Emoni starts cooking, her only choice is to let her talent break free.

Between the Lines

Between the Lines PDF Author: Jodi Picoult
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1451635818
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
Told in their separate voices, sixteen-year-old Prince Oliver, who wants to break free of his fairy-tale existence, and fifteen-year-old Delilah, a loner obsessed with Prince Oliver and the book in which he exists, work together to seek his freedom.

If He Had Been with Me

If He Had Been with Me PDF Author: Laura Nowlin
Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc.
ISBN: 1402277849
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
If he had been with me everything would have been different... I wasn't with Finn on that August night. But I should've been. It was raining, of course. And he and Sylvie were arguing as he drove down the slick road. No one ever says what they were arguing about. Other people think it's not important. They do not know there is another story. The story that lurks between the facts. What they do not know—the cause of the argument—is crucial. So let me tell you...