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Wit: A Play
Winner of the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the New York Drama Critics Circle Award, the Drama Desk Award, the Outer Critics Circle Award, the Lucille Lortel Award, and the Oppenheimer Award.
In Wit, Edson delves into timeless questions with no final answers: How should we live our lives knowing that we will die? Is the way we live our lives and interact with others more important than what we achieve materially, professionally, or intellectually? How does language figure into our lives? Can science and art help us conquer death, or our fear of it? What will seem most important to each of us about life as that life comes to an end? The immediacy of the presentation, and the clarity and elegance of Edson's writing, make this sophisticated, multilayered play accessible to almost any interested reader. As the play begins, Vivian Bearing, a renowned professor of English who has spent years studying and teaching the intricate, difficult Holy Sonnets of the seventeenth-century poet John Donne, is diagnosed with advanced ovarian cancer. Confident of her ability to stay in control of events, she brings to her illness the same intensely rational and painstakingly methodical approach that has guided her stellar academic career. But as her disease and its excruciatingly painful treatment inexorably progress, she begins to question the single-minded values and standards that have always directed her, finally coming to understand the aspects of life that make it truly worth living.
Adapted to an Emmy Award-winning television movie, directed by Mike Nichols, starring Emma Thompson.
Margaret Edson's powerfully imagined Pulitzer Prize-winning play examines what makes life worth living through her exploration of one of existence's unifying experiences--mortality--while she also probes the vital importance of human relationships. What we as her audience take away from this remarkable drama is a keener sense that, while death is real and unavoidable, our lives are ours to cherish or throw away--a lesson that can be both uplifting and redemptive. As the playwright herself puts it, "The play is not about doctors or even about cancer. It's about kindness, but it shows arrogance. It's about compassion, but it shows insensitivity." -
The New Girl
From the BookTok viral author of The Obsession comes a new YA thriller for fans of Gossip Girl and Euphoria.
*BuzzFeed Highly Anticipated Thriller of 2022
*PopSugar Best YA Book
*Netgalley Most Anticipated Novel of 2022
She's a liar. A cheater. A murderer. And it's only her first semester.
Lia Setiawan has never really fit in. And when she wins a full ride to the prestigious Draycott Academy on a track scholarship, she's determined to make it work even though she's never felt more out of place.
But on her first day there she witnesses a girl being forcefully carried away by campus security. Her new schoolmates and teachers seem unphased, but it leaves her unsure of what she's gotten herself into.
And as she uncovers the secrets of Draycott, complete with a corrupt teacher, a golden boy who isn't what he seems, and a blackmailer determined to get her thrown out, she's not sure if she can trust anyone...especially when the threats against her take a deadly turn.
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The Reluctant Countess: A Would-Be Wallflowers Novel
New York Times bestselling author Eloisa James returns to the Would-Be Wallflowers series with an enemies-to-lovers romance between a proper earl and an entirely improper lady--whom he can't stop thinking about.
Giles Renwick, Earl of Lilford, has never made a fool of himself over a woman--until he meets Lady Yasmin Régnier. Yasmin is ineligible for his attentions in every way: not as a wife, certainly not as a mistress (she is a lady!), nor even as a friend, since they vehemently dislike each other. Her gowns are too low, and her skirts are dampened to cling to admittedly lovely thighs. She loves to gossip--and giggle.
She isn't dignified, or polite, or even truly British, given that her father's French ancestry clearly predominated. Not to mention the fact that her mother had been one of Napoleon's mistresses, a fact she makes no effort to hide.
So what--in heaven's name--possesses him to propose?
And what will he do if she says yes?
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Taylor Swift: A Biography
Taylor Swift is an American singer-songwriter. One of the world's leading contemporary recording artists, she is known for narrative songs about her personal life, which have received widespread media coverage. Born and raised in Pennsylvania, Swift moved to Nashville, Tennessee at the age of 14 to pursue a career in country music. She signed with the label Big Machine Records and became the youngest artist ever signed by the Sony/ATV Music publishing house. Her 2006 self-titled debut album peaked at number five on the Billboard 200 and spent the most weeks on the chart in the 2000s. The album's third single, "Our Song", made her the youngest person to single-handedly write and perform a number-one song on the Hot Country Songs chart. Swift's second album, Fearless, was released in 2008. Buoyed by the success of pop crossover singles "Love Story" and "You Belong with Me", Fearless became the best-selling album of 2009 in the US. The album won four Grammy Awards, with Swift becoming the youngest Album of the Year winner. Swift was the sole writer of her 2010 album, Speak Now. It debuted at number one in the United States and the single "Mean" won two Grammy Awards. Her fourth album, Red (2012), yielded the successful singles "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" and "I Knew You Were Trouble". For her fifth album, the pop-focused 1989 (2014), she received three Grammys, and became the first woman and fifth act overall to win Album of the Year twice. Its singles "Shake It Off", "Blank Space", and "Bad Blood" reached number one in the US, Australia, and Canada. The 2015 concert tour for 1989 became one of the highest-grossing of the decade. Swift's sixth album, Reputation (2017) and its lead single "Look What You Made Me Do" topped the UK and US charts; with the former, she became the first act to have four albums sell one million copies within one week in the US. As a songwriter, Swift has received awards from the Nashville Songwriters Association and the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and was included in Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time in 2015. She is also the recipient of 10 Grammys, six Guinness World Records, one Emmy Award, 23 Billboard Music Awards, and 12 Country Music Association Awards. Swift is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, having sold more than 40 million albums-including 27.8 million in the US-and 130 million single downloads. She has appeared in Time's 100 most influential people in the world (2010 and 2015), Forbes' top-earning women in music (2011-2015), Forbes' 100 most powerful women (2015), and Forbes Celebrity 100 (2016). Her inclusion in the third of these made her the youngest woman on the list, and she ranked first in Celebrity 100. -
Carry Strong: An Empowered Approach to Navigating Pregnancy and Work
A groundbreaking approach to successfully navigating your pregnancy at work Pregnancy is a profound journey. Navigating it while working--from figuring out how to tell your boss you're pregnant to squeezing in doctors' appointments between meetings, all while working even harder to prove yourself--can be a push and pull between a desire for privacy and the need for support. The good news is, it's possible to thrive in both spaces. Carry Strong offers a new approach that will transform your pregnancy years at work from something to "get through" into a career opportunity to embrace with confidence. Employing original research, expert advice, and real-life stories from Olympic athletes, CEOs, and hundreds of amazing working mothers across the country, executive and professor Stephanie Kramer outlines essential principles for navigating pregnancy and work simultaneously. She shows you how to embrace a different perspective, find your balance, cultivate community, communicate your needs, and navigate the shift in identity from working woman to working mother. Along the way, you'll identify career considerations to make at each phase of pregnancy, starting with the moment you decide you want to become a working mom-to-be. In Carry Strong, Kramer flips the script: This isn't about powering through pregnancy at work. It's about being powerful and pregnant at work. -
Lowcountry Book Club
USA TODAY BESTSELLING AUTHOR and AGATHA AWARD-WINNING SERIES "Boyer delivers a beach read filled with quirky, endearing characters and a masterfully layered mystery, all set in the lush lowcountry. Don't miss this one!" - Mary Alice Monroe, New York Times Bestselling Author of A Lowcountry Wedding "Boyer writes with humor, grace, and Southern grit in this charmer of a Carolina tale." - Gretchen Archer, USA Today Bestselling Author of Double Knot "The authentically Southern Boyer writes with heart, insight, and a deep understanding of human nature." - Hank Phillippi Ryan, Agatha Award-Winning Author of What You See "Boyer deftly shapes characters with just enough idiosyncrasies without succumbing to clichés while infusing her lighthearted plot with an insightful look at families." - Oline Cogdill, South Florida Sun Sentinel Somebody pushed Shelby Poinsett out her second-floor library window and it wasn't her husband. At least that's what Charleston's most prestigious law firm wants Liz Talbot to prove. Liz must run the spectrum of Southern society, from the local homeless shelter where Shelby volunteered to the one-hundred-year-old book club where Charleston's genteel ladies are dying to join, to bring a killer to justice. Related subjects include: women sleuths, private investigator mystery series, cozy mysteries, murder mysteries, whodunit mysteries (whodunnit), book club recommendations, Southern fiction, Southern humor, Southern living. Books in the Liz Talbot Mystery Series: - LOWCOUNTRY BOIL (#1) - LOWCOUNTRY BOMBSHELL (#2) - LOWCOUNTRY BONEYARD (#3) - LOWCOUNTRY BORDELLO (#4) - LOWCOUNTRY BOOK CLUB (#5) Part of the Henery Press Mystery Series Collection, if you like one, you'll probably like them all... Author Bio: Susan M. Boyer is the author of the USA Today bestselling Liz Talbot mystery series. Her debut novel, Lowcountry Boil, won the Agatha Award for Best First Novel, the Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence in Mystery/Suspense, and garnered several other award nominations, including the Macavity. The third in the series, Lowcountry Boneyard, was a Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance (SIBA) Okra Pick, a Daphne du Maurier Award finalist, and short-listed for the Pat Conroy Beach Music Mystery Prize. Susan loves beaches, Southern food, and small towns where everyone knows everyone, and everyone has crazy relatives. You'll find all of the above in her novels. She lives in Greenville, SC, with her husband and an inordinate number of houseplants. -
Maggie the Mechanic: A Love and Rockets Book
This volume is the first in a comprehensive and chronological series, The Complete Love and Rockets Library, and the first that collects all of writer-artist Jaime Hernandez's "Locas" comic books and graphic novels. The storyline revolves around the indomitable Maggie, her anarchic best friend/occasional lover, Hopey, punk music, paramours, friends, family, and the Southern Californian neighborhood Hoppers 13, aka Huerta. Maggie the Mechanic collects the earliest and most sci-fi stories where, in addition to our heroes, we meet bombshell Penny Century, weirdo mentor Izzy, wrestler Rena Titanon, and potential love interest Rand Race. As well as seeing Hernandez develop as a cartoonist from 1981 to 1989, readers will see how he draws characters with various body types that change as they age in "real-time."These stories first appeared in the seminal, long-running (and ongoing) Love and Rockets comics series, also featuring work by Jaime's brothers, Gilbert and Mario. L&R has been called "the greatest American comic book series of all time" by Rolling Stone and "a great, sprawling American novel" by GQ. It broke ground with its craft and the casual intersectionality of its huge and diverse casts of nuanced characters (many of whom are LGBQTIA+) who live and have relationships in often-naturalistic settings and situations (although L&R has SF and magical realist elements too). Along with contemporaries Chris Ware, Lynda Barry, and Daniel Clowes, the Hernandez brothers pushed the comics medium into new artistic heights.
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Sold outThe Fashion Disaster
Paws on parade! River Heights is hosting its first fashion show -- for dogs! Proceeds will go to the Rollover Rescue animal shelter. The Clue Crew is excited because not only will the day be filled with tons of cute pooches, but Nancy's own puppy, Chocolate Chip, will be a model in the show! But of course, there are some bumps along this fashion show's runway when someone steals a special basket of gourmet dog biscuits. They belong to doggy-diva Lola, a fancy poodle who's the star of the show! Can the Clue Crew sniff out this doggy-biscuit burglar?Sold out -
Things I Don't Want to Know: On Writing
A shimmering jewel of a book about writing from two-time Booker Prize finalist Deborah Levy, to publish alongside her new work of nonfiction, The Cost of Living.
Blending personal history, gender politics, philosophy, and literary theory into a luminescent treatise on writing, love, and loss, Things I Don't Want to Know is Deborah Levy's witty response to George Orwell's influential essay "Why I Write." Orwell identified four reasons he was driven to hammer at his typewriter--political purpose, historical impulse, sheer egoism, and aesthetic enthusiasm--and Levy's newest work riffs on these same commitments from a female writer's perspective. As she struggles to balance womanhood, motherhood, and her writing career, Levy identifies some of the real-life experiences that have shaped her novels, including her family's emigration from South Africa in the era of apartheid; her teenage years in the UK where she played at being a writer in the company of builders and bus drivers in cheap diners; and her theater-writing days touring Poland in the midst of Eastern Europe's economic crisis, where she observed how a soldier tenderly kissed the women in his life goodbye. Spanning continents (Africa and Europe) and decades (we meet the writer at seven, fifteen, and fifty), Things I Don't Want to Know brings the reader into a writer's heart. -
Calling All Witches! the Girls Who Left Their Mark on the Wizarding World (Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts)
This powerful collection of favorite movie moments is readers' gateway to the most empowering witches of our age!For all the girls as clever as Hermione Granger, as strong as Leta Lestrange, and as fierce as Minerva McGonagall, this incredible compendium is packed with the stories of Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts' extraordinary heroines! Besides the series' best-known characters, get to know the female mentors, founders, rule-breakers, and -- yes, even villains like Bellatrix Lestrange and Vinda Rosier -- who made the wizarding world what it is today. Complete with gorgeous, full-color illustrations and photography from iconic movie moments on every spread, fans will love this colorful romp with the most empowering witches of our age. Explore the many ways these women built, enriched, and saved the wizarding world, and get inspired by their stories in this compelling handbook--a must-have for fans! -
The Heroine with 1001 Faces
The Heroine with 1,001 Faces dismantles the cult of warrior heroes, revealing a secret history of heroinism at the very heart of our collective cultural imagination. Maria Tatar, a leading authority on fairy tales and folklore, explores how heroines, rarely wielding a sword and often deprived of a pen, have flown beneath the radar even as they have been bent on redemptive missions. Deploying the domestic crafts and using words as weapons, they have found ways to survive assaults and rescue others from harm, all while repairing the fraying edges in the fabric of their social worlds. Like the tongueless Philomela, who spins the tale of her rape into a tapestry, or Arachne, who portrays the misdeeds of the gods, they have discovered instruments for securing fairness in the storytelling circles where so-called women's work--spinning, mending, and weaving--is carried out.
Tatar challenges the canonical models of heroism in Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces, with their male-centric emphases on achieving glory and immortality. Finding the women missing from his account and defining their own heroic trajectories is no easy task, for Campbell created the playbook for Hollywood directors. Audiences around the world have willingly surrendered to the lure of quest narratives and charismatic heroes. Whether in the form of Frodo, Luke Skywalker, or Harry Potter, Campbell's archetypical hero has dominated more than the box office.
In a broad-ranging volume that moves with ease from the local to the global, Tatar demonstrates how our new heroines wear their curiosity as a badge of honor rather than a mark of shame, and how their "mischief making" evidences compassion and concern. From Bluebeard's wife to Nancy Drew, and from Jane Eyre to Janie Crawford, women have long crafted stories to broadcast offenses in the pursuit of social justice. Girls, too, have now precociously stepped up to the plate, with Hermione Granger, Katniss Everdeen, and Starr Carter as trickster figures enacting their own forms of extrajudicial justice. Their quests may not take the traditional form of a "hero's journey," but they reveal the value of courage, defiance, and, above all, care.
"By turns dazzling and chilling" (Ruth Franklin), The Heroine with 1,001 Faces creates a luminous arc that takes us from ancient times to the present day. It casts an unusually wide net, expanding the canon and thinking capaciously in global terms, breaking down the boundaries of genre, and displaying a sovereign command of cultural context. This, then, is a historic volume that informs our present and its newfound investment in empathy and social justice like no other work of recent cultural history.
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The Girls' Guide to Growing Up: The Best-Selling Puberty Guide for Girls
"... this book is a MUST if you have a growing girl." - online customer review
"Some things are super scary especially for a 9-year-old but reading this together, I felt, let her know that she could talk to me about anything." - online customer review "It has everything a girl needs to understand their body and mood changes as they experience this new stage of their lives." - online customer review "A very gentle and friendly guide to growing up." - online customer review "The illustrations are all child-appropriate and the level of detail is set just right." - online customer review "Opens the door for conversations about the changes they are and will be going through." - online customer review A sensitively written, friendly guide to growing up, specifically aimed at younger girls. A friendly, reassuring and positive guide for girls as they approach puberty, explaining the changes that will happen to their bodies as they grow up and how these changes might make them feel. Covering everything from periods and breast development to body hair and personal hygiene, puberty and parenting expert Anita Naik addresses any worries that girls may have relating to what is 'normal'. She reassures readers and booststheir confidence, encouraging them to feel positive about the changes they will experience as they go through puberty. The Girls' Guide to Growing Up also includes advice on topics such as body image, self-esteem and how puberty affects boys, and has an age-appropriate section on sex and reproduction. Contents include: - What is puberty?
- Your puberty timeline
- Breasts and bras
- Same age, different stage
- Skin changes
- Sweats, smells and personal hygiene
- Hair in new places
- Changes down below
- What are periods?
- The practical side of periods
- Managing periods
- Sex explained
- Making babies
- New feelings
- Managing your moods
- Healthy eating
- The power of exercise
- Self-esteem and body image
- Privacy and your body
- Puberty for boys
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An Unexpected Peril
A princess is missing and a peace treaty is on the verge of collapse in this new Veronica Speedwell adventure from the New York Times bestselling and Edgar Award-nominated author Deanna Raybourn. January 1889. As the newest member of the Curiosity Club--an elite society of brilliant, intrepid women--Veronica Speedwell is excited to put her many skills to good use. As she assembles a memorial exhibition for pioneering mountain climber Alice Baker-Greene, Veronica discovers evidence that the recent death was not a tragic climbing accident but murder. Veronica and her natural historian beau, Stoker, tell the patron of the exhibit, Princess Gisela of Alpenwald, of their findings. With Europe on the verge of war, Gisela's chancellor, Count von Rechstein, does not want to make waves--and before Veronica and Stoker can figure out their next move, the princess disappears. Having noted Veronica's resemblance to the princess, von Rechstein begs her to pose as Gisela for the sake of the peace treaty that brought the princess to England. Veronica reluctantly agrees to the scheme. She and Stoker must work together to keep the treaty intact while navigating unwelcome advances, assassination attempts, and Veronica's own family--the royalty who has never claimed her. -
Sold outMy Monticello: Fiction
"A badass debut by any measure--nimble, knowing, and electrifying." --Colson Whitehead, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Nickel Boys and Harlem Shuffle
"...'My Monticello' is, quite simply, an extraordinary debut from a gifted writer with an unflinching view of history and what may come of it." -- The Washington Post
Winner of the Weatherford Award in Fiction
A winner of 2022 Lillian Smith Book Awards
One of the Women's National Book Association's 2022 Great Group Reads
Named one of the best books of 2022 by WGN Radio
A young woman descended from Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings driven from her neighborhood by a white militia. A university professor studying racism by conducting a secret social experiment on his own son. A single mother desperate to buy her first home even as the world hurtles toward catastrophe. Each fighting to survive in America. Tough-minded, vulnerable, and brave, Jocelyn Nicole Johnson's precisely imagined debut explores burdened inheritances and extraordinary pursuits of belonging. Set in the near future, the eponymous novella, "My Monticello," tells of a diverse group of Charlottesville neighbors fleeing violent white supremacists. Led by Da'Naisha, a young Black descendant of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, they seek refuge in Jefferson's historic plantation home in a desperate attempt to outlive the long-foretold racial and environmental unravelling within the nation. In "Control Negro," hailed by Roxane Gay as "one hell of story," a university professor devotes himself to the study of racism and the development of ACMs (average American Caucasian males) by clinically observing his own son from birth in order to "painstakingly mark the route of this Black child too, one whom I could prove was so strikingly decent and true that America could not find fault in him unless we as a nation had projected it there." Johnson's characters all seek out home as a place and an internal state, whether in the form of a Nigerian widower who immigrates to a meager existence in the city of Alexandria, finding himself adrift; a young mixed-race woman who adopts a new tongue and name to escape the landscapes of rural Virginia and her family; or a single mother who seeks salvation through "Buying a House Ahead of the Apocalypse." United by these characters' relentless struggles against reality and fate, My Monticello is a formidable book that bears witness to this country's legacies and announces the arrival of a wildly original new voice in American fiction.Sold out -
Harriet Tubman
Part of the critically acclaimed Little People, BIG DREAMS series, discover the incredible life of Harriet Tubman, the Underground Railroad conductor who "never lost a single passenger." Little Harriet was born into slavery on a plantation in Maryland. Though life was hard, Harriet persisted. She used all of her strength and bravery to escape slavery and journey north on the Underground Railroad. Harriet made the dangerous mission back to the South many times, fighting her whole life to bring others with her to freedom. This moving book features stylish and quirky illustrations and extra facts at the back, including a biographical timeline with historical photos and a detailed profile of the abolitionist's life. Little People, BIG DREAMS is a best-selling biography series for kids that explores the lives of outstanding people, from designers and artists to scientists and activists. All of them achieved incredible things, yet each began life as a child with a dream. This empowering series of books offers inspiring messages to children of all ages, in a range of formats. The board books are told in simple sentences, perfect for reading aloud to babies and toddlers. The hardcover and paperback versions present expanded stories for beginning readers. With rewritten text for older children, the treasuries each bring together a multitude of dreamers in a single volume. You can also collect a selection of the books by theme in boxed gift sets. Activity books and a journal provide even more ways to make the lives of these role models accessible to children. Inspire the next generation of outstanding people who will change the world with Little People, BIG DREAMS!
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The Lies That Bind
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - In this irresistible novel from the author of All We Ever Wanted and Something Borrowed, a young woman falls hard for an impossibly perfect man before he disappears without a trace. . . . It's 2 A.M. on a Saturday night in the spring of 2001, and twenty-eight-year-old Cecily Gardner sits alone in a dive bar in New York's East Village, questioning her life. Feeling lonesome and homesick for the Midwest, she wonders if she'll ever make it as a reporter in the big city--and whether she made a terrible mistake in breaking up with her longtime boyfriend, Matthew. As Cecily reaches for the phone to call him, she hears a guy on the barstool next to her say, "Don't do it--you'll regret it." Something tells her to listen, and over the next several hours--and shots of tequila--the two forge an unlikely connection. That should be it, they both decide the next morning, as Cecily reminds herself of the perils of a rebound relationship. Moreover, their timing couldn't be worse--Grant is preparing to quit his job and move overseas. Yet despite all their obstacles, they can't seem to say goodbye, and for the first time in her carefully constructed life, Cecily follows her heart instead of her head. Then Grant disappears in the chaos of 9/11. Fearing the worst, Cecily spots his face on a missing-person poster, and realizes she is not the only one searching for him. Her investigative reporting instincts kick into action as she vows to discover the truth. But the questions pile up fast: How well did she really know Grant? Did he ever really love her? And is it possible to love a man who wasn't who he seemed to be? The Lies That Bind is a mesmerizing and emotionally resonant exploration of the never-ending search for love and truth--in our relationships, our careers, and deep within our own hearts.