Nous sommes en 1971, à la veille de Noël, la météo annonce une importante perturbation. Russ Hildebrandt vit avec sa femme, Marion, et leurs enfants dans une banlieue cossue de Chicago. Pour ce pasteur libéral, l'attirance qu'il ressent à l'égard d'une jolie paroissienne est un vrai cas de conscience. À ses tourments s'ajoute l'arrivée de Rick Ambrose, le jeune pasteur cool qui cherche à l'évincer à la tête de l'association de jeunes qu'il a créée.
Soudain, tout s'accélère... La guerre du Vietnam fait rage, la contestation s'étend, les enfants s'émancipent, la musique change. Sex, drugs & rock'n'roll.
Avec humour, empathie et une incroyable virtuosité, Jonathan Franzen sonde la vie intime de chacun de ses personnages, décrypte leurs désirs, fouille leur passé. Crossroads marque le retour de cet immense écrivain à son thème favori : la famille américaine. Elle est le microcosme où s'affrontent la passion et la dépression, l'amour et la haine, l'ancien et le nouveau.
Bringhton, été 1968. Trois personnages sont réunis pour les besoins d'un film : Talbot Kydd, le producteur, affronte comme il peut les embûches du tournage tout en se demandant comment sortir du placard. Anny Viklund, l'actrice principale avec une vie amoureuse déjà chaotique, voit réapparaître son ex-mari recherché par la CIA. Elfrida Wing, épouse délaissée du metteur en scène, combat sa panne d'écrivain à renfort de gin tonic. Ces trois êtres désemparés et attachants nous amènent dans les coulisses d'une vie marquée par la duplicité et la simulation.
Un récit tendre et jubilatoire, qui restitue avec brio l'esprit des « Swingin' Sixties ».
Né au Ghana en 1952, William Boyd a enseigné la littérature à Oxford avant de se consacrer à l'écriture. Il est l'un des écrivains les plus doués de sa génération. Il partage son temps avec sa femme Susan entre Londres et la Dordogne. Tous ses ouvrages, dont La Vie aux aguets et Brazzaville plage, sont disponibles chez Points.
Elle se tenait devant nous sans notes, ni livres, ni trac. Elle laissa son regard errer, sourit, immobile et commença:«Vous aurez remarqué que le titre de ce cours est Culture et civilisation. Ne vous inquiétez pas, je ne vais pas vous bombarder de graphiques et de diagrammes. Je ne vais pas vous gaver de faits comme on gave une oie de maïs... Je m'adresserai aux adultes que vous êtes sans nul doute. La meilleure forme d'éducation, comme les Grecs le savaient, est collaborative. Nous pratiquerons donc le dialogue... Mon nom est Elizabeth Finch. Merci.»Et Neil, le narrateur de ce roman d'amour pas du tout comme les autres, la trentaine, comédien sans beaucoup de succès s'éprend aussitôt de cette enseignante, largement cinquantenaire en «sachant obscurément que pour la première fois sans doute, j'étais arrivé au bon endroit».Mais qui est vraiment Elizabeth Finch? Mystérieuse, indéchiffrable, on ne sait rien de sa vie. Que découvrira Neil, toujours amoureux, vingt ans plus tard, quand il héritera de ses papiers personnels? Pourquoi en revenait-elle sans cesse au personnage de Julien l'Apostat, l'empereur romain qui n'alla jamais à Rome et qui, s'il n'était pas mort à trente et un ans aurait peut-être modifié le cours de l'Histoire en voulant renoncer au christianisme pour revenir aux dieux païens d'autrefois?Oui, qui était réellement Elizabeth Finch? Et Julian Barnes nous donnera-t-il des réponses dans ce roman autour d'un amour si étrange et si romanesque?
'' Beautiful World, Where Are You is Rooney''s best novel.'' THE TIMES ***PRE-ORDER NOW*** *The Sunday Times and Global number one bestseller* *Winner of Novel of the Year at the An Post Irish Book Awards* *A Book of the Year in The Times , the Guardian , the Irish Times and the Financial Times* ''A tour de force.'' Anne Enright, Guardian ''Rooney''s best novel yet.'' Brandon Taylor, New York Times ''Get ready to have your heart broken all over again.'' Red ''The book moved me to tears more than once.'' The Times Alice, a novelist, meets Felix, who works in a warehouse, and asks him if he''d like to travel to Rome with her. In Dublin, her best friend Eileen is getting over a break-up and slips back into flirting with Simon, a man she has known since childhood. Alice, Felix, Eileen and Simon are still young - but life is catching up with them. They desire each other, they delude each other, they worry about sex and friendship and the times they live in. Will they find a way to believe in a beautiful world?
Vern est enceinte de sept mois et décide de s'échapper de la secte où elle a été élevée. Cachée dans une forêt, elle donne naissance à des jumeaux, et prévoit de les élever loin de l'influence du monde extérieur.
Mais, même dans la forêt, Vern reste une proie. Forcée de se battre contre la communauté qui refuse son départ, elle montre une brutalité terrifiante, résultat de changements inexplicables et étranges que son corps traverse.
Pour comprendre sa métamorphose et protéger sa petite famille, Vern doit affronter le passé et l'avenir. Trouver la vérité signifiera découvrir les secrets du culte qu'elle a fui, mais aussi l'histoire violente de Amérique qui l'a produit.
__________________________ The new novel from the bestselling author of The Pursuit of Happiness and The Moment Brendan has always lived a careful, constrained life. A salesman who never liked the work, he''s a man who has stayed in his marriage and his faith because it was what was expected of him. But now, having lost his job after corporate downsizing and on the cusp of sixty, he finds himself scrambling to somehow stay afloat in the only Los Angeles work on offer to a man his age - driving for Uber. When one of his rides, a retired professor named Elise, asks to be dropped off outside an abortion clinic where she now volunteers, Brendan finds himself literally driving right into the virulent epicentre of one of the major issues of our time, engulfing his life in the process. A novel of high suspense and considerable moral complexity, Afraid of the Light is a tough, affecting social thriller that speaks volumes about the corrosive divisions of our troubled times. __________________________ ''Kennedy is skilled at zigzag plotting, blending domestic twists with turns created by global affairs'' OBSERVER
Amor Towles is the author of New York Times bestsellers Rules of Civility and A Gentleman in Moscow . The two novels have collectively sold more than 4 million copies and have been translated into more than thirty languages. Towles lives in Manhattan with his wife and two children.>
A breathtaking historical novel of revenge, persecution and loss, The City of Tears by Kate Mosse follows on from her Sunday Times number one bestseller, The Burning Chambers . May 1572: for ten violent years the Wars of Religion have raged across France. Neighbours have become enemies, countless lives have been lost, and the country has been torn apart over matters of religion, citizenship and sovereignty. But now a precarious peace is in the balance and a royal wedding has been negotiated. It is a marriage that could see France reunited at last. An invitation has arrived for Minou Joubert and her family to attend this historic wedding in Paris in August. But what Minou does not know is that the Joubert family''s oldest enemy, Vidal, will also be there. Nor that, within days of the marriage, on the eve of the Feast Day of St Bartholomew, her family will be scattered to the four winds and one of her beloved children will have disappeared without trace . . . Sweeping from Paris and Chartres to the City of Tears itself - the great refugee city of Amsterdam - this is a story of one family''s fight to stay together and survive against the devastating tides of history . . . ''A gorgeously written, utterly absorbing epic . . . I absolutely loved it'' - Lucy Foley, author of The Hunting Party ''A novel with vast scope and ambition, brilliantly achieved . . . I was utterly immersed in this spell-binding story'' - Rosamund Lupton, author of Three Hours ''This is historical fiction to devour. Nobody does it like Kate Mosse'' - Anthony Horowitz on The Burning Chambers
One of our best contemporary storytellers. . . Trio embraces comedy, tragedy and redemption. It succeeds impressively because of its dramatic, often sensational, revelations>
A charming - and sharp - love story about what it means to fall for someone who is your polar opposite'' Sunday Telegraphbr>_______________________________________________________br>br>Lucy married just the sort of man you might expect: a university graduate who runs his own business. Unfortunately he turned out to have serious dependency issues.br>br>Joseph is shaking off the memory of his last date, a girl who ticked all the right boxes and also drove him up the wall.br>br>On an average Saturday morning in a butcher''s shop in North London, Lucy and Joseph meet on opposite sides of the counter. She is a teacher and mother of two, with a past she is trying to forget; he is an aspiring DJ with a wide-open future that maybe needs to start becoming more focused. Lucy and Joseph are opposites in almost all ways. Can something life-changing grow from uncommon ground?br>br>Nick Hornby''s brilliantly observed, tender and brutally funny new novel gets to the heart of what it means to fall headlong in love with the best possible person - someone who may not be just like you at all.br>_____________________________________________br>br>''Truly funny . . . immensely readable, sharp-eyed and at times hilarious'' Guardianbr>br>''Comedy for our times'' Sunday Timesbr>br>''Sparkles with tip-top dialogue and pin-sharp comic timing'' Daily Mail>
So sharply, so utterly brilliant that I found myself holding my breath while reading it, dazzled by Fuller''s mastery and precision'' LAUREN GROFF, author of Fates and Furiesbr>__________________________________________________________________________br>br>What if the life you have always known is taken from you in an instant? br>br>What would you do to get it back?br>br>Twins Jeanie and Julius have always been different from other people. At 51 years old, they still live with their mother, Dot, in rural isolation and poverty. Inside the walls of their old cottage they make music, and in the garden they grow (and sometimes kill) everything they need for sustenance.br>br>But when Dot dies suddenly, threats to their livelihood start raining down. Jeanie and Julius would do anything to preserve their small sanctuary against the perils of the outside world, even as their mother''s secrets begin to unravel, putting everything they thought they knew about their lives at stake. br>br>Unsettled Ground is a heart-stopping novel of betrayal and resilience, love and survival. It is a portrait of life on the fringes of society that explores with dazzling emotional power how we can build our lives on broken foundations, and spin light from darkness.br>____________________________________________________________________br>br>''A gorgeously written celebration of the natural world as well as a moving portrait of a family struggling against time'' LUCY TAN>
LONGLISTED FOR THE 2021 WOMEN''S PRIZE FOR FICTION THE FIRST NOVEL FROM PATRICIA LOCKWOOD ''I really admire and love this book. Patricia Lockwood is a completely singular talent and this is her best, funniest, weirdest, most affecting work yet'' Sally Rooney, author of Normal People ''A literary star ... Captures better than anything I''ve ever read what it''s like to be online'' Hadley Freeman, Guardian ''A furiously original novel, alive and unstable'' Jia Tolentino, author of Trick Mirror A Guardian, Times, Daily Mail, Esquire, Irish Independent, Irish Times, Elle, Independent and Stylist Highlight for 2021 A woman known for her viral social media posts travels the world speaking to her adoring fans, her entire existence overwhelmed by the internet - or what she terms ''the portal''. Are we in hell? the people of the portal ask themselves. Are we all just going to keep doing this until we die?
Suddenly, two texts from her mother pierce the fray: ''Something has gone wrong,'' and ''How soon can you get here?'' As real life and its stakes collide with the increasing absurdity of the portal, the woman confronts a world that seems to contain both an abundance of proof that there is goodness, empathy and justice in the universe, and a deluge of evidence to the contrary.
Irreverent and sincere, poignant and delightfully profane, No One Is Talking About This is at once a love letter to the infinite scroll and a meditation on love, language and human connection from one of the most original voices of our time.>
The wait is over And so I step up, into the darkness within; or else the light.
When the van door slammed on Offred's future at the end of The Handmaid's Tale, readers had no way of telling what lay ahead for her - freedom, prison or death.
With The Testaments, the wait is over.
Margaret Atwood's sequel picks up the story 15 years after Offred stepped into the unknown, with the explosive testaments of three female narrators from Gilead.
'Dear Readers: Everything you've ever asked me about Gilead and its inner workings is the inspiration for this book. Well, almost everything! The other inspiration is the world we've been living in.' Margaret Atwood
In an alternate version of 1893 America, New York is part of the Free States, where people may live and love whomever they please (or so it seems). The fragile young scion of a distinguished family resists betrothal to a worthy suitor, drawn to a charming music teacher of no means. In a 1993 Manhattan besieged by the AIDS epidemic, a young Hawaiian man lives with his much older, wealthier partner, hiding his troubled childhood and the fate of his father. And in 2093, in a world riven by plagues and governed by totalitarian rule, a powerful scientist''s damaged granddaughter tries to navigate life without him - and solve the mystery of her husband''s disappearances. These three sections are joined in an enthralling and ingenious symphony, as recurring notes and themes deepen and enrich one another: A townhouse in Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village; illness, and treatments that come at a terrible cost; wealth and squalor; the weak and the strong; race; the definition of family, and of nationhood; the dangerous righteousness of the powerful, and of revolutionaries; the longing to find a place in an earthly paradise, and the gradual realization that it can''t exist. What unites not just the characters, but these Americas, are their reckonings with the qualities that make us human: Fear. Love. Shame. Need. Loneliness. To Paradise is a fin de siecle novel of marvelous literary effect, but above all it is a work of emotional genius. The great power of this remarkable novel is driven by Yanagihara''s understanding of the aching desire to protect those we love - partners, lovers, children, friends, family and even our fellow citizens - and the pain that ensues when we cannot.
**The dazzling new novel from the prize-winning, bestselling author of Middle England** A young woman named Calista meets the famed Hollywood director Billy Wilder in the sweltering summer of 1976. She knows nothing about him or his work, but this chance encounter will change her life for good.But while Calista is thrilled with her new adventure, Wilder himself - struggling to raise the money for his next feature film - is living with the realisation that his star may be on the wane.In his new novel that is, by turns, funny, tender and profoundly truthful, Jonathan Coe turns his gaze to the nature of time, fame, family and nostalgia. When the world is catapulting towards change, do you hold on for dear life or decide it''s time to let go?br>_______________________________________________________Praise for Jonathan Coe''Coe is a writer of uncommon decency'' Observer''Brilliantly funny'' Economist''Superb'' Times''Very, very funny'' Stylist>
''It leaves the reader moved and subtly changed, as if she had become part of the story'' Hilary Mantel ''So moving and delicate and terrifying and haunting'' Maggie O''Farrell The highly anticipated new novel from the Costa-award winning, three-times Booker-longlisted author of Reservoir 13 .
When an Antarctic research expedition goes wrong, the consequences are far-reaching - for the men involved and for their families back home. Robert "Doc" Wright, a veteran of Antarctic field work, holds the clues to what happened, but he is no longer able to communicate them. While Anna, his wife, navigates the sharp contours of her new life as a carer, Robert is forced to learn a whole new way to be in the world. Award-winning novelist Jon McGregor returns with a stunning novel that mesmerizingly and tenderly unpicks the notion of heroism and explores the indomitable human impulse to tell our stories - even when words fail us. A meditation on the line between sacrifice and selfishness this is a story of the undervalued, unrecognised courage it can take just to get through the day.
''Mieko Kawakami is a genius'' Naoise Dolan, author of Exciting Times From the bestselling author of Breasts and Eggs and international literary sensation Mieko Kawakami comes a sharp and illuminating novel about a fourteen-year-old boy subjected to relentless bullying. In Heaven , a fourteen-year-old boy is tormented for having a lazy eye. Instead of resisting, he chooses to suffer in silence. The only person who understands what he is going through is a female classmate, Kojima, who experiences similar treatment at the hands of her bullies. Providing each other with immeasurable consolation at a time in their lives when they need it most, the two young friends grow closer than ever. But what, ultimately, is the nature of a friendship when your shared bond is terror? Unflinching yet tender, sharply observed, intimate and multi-layered, this simple yet profound novel stands as yet another dazzling testament to Mieko Kawakami''s uncontainable talent. There can be little doubt that it has cemented her reputation as one of the most important young authors at work today. ''An expertly told, deeply unsettling tale of adolescent violence'' Vogue Translated from the Japanese by David Boyd and Sam Bett.
SHORTLISTED FOR THE FOLIO PRIZE 2022br>br>SHORTLISTED FOR THE GOLDSMITHS PRIZE 2021br>br>SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKS ARE MY BAG FICTION AWARD 2021br>br>''Diamond-sharp, timely and urgent'' Observer, Best Debuts of 2021br>br>''Subtle, elegant, scorching'' Voguebr>br>''Virtuosic, exquisite, achingly unique'' Guardianbr>br>''I''m full of the hope, on reading it, that this is the kind of book that doesn''t just mark the moment things change, but also makes that change possible'' Ali Smithbr>br>''Exquisite, daring, utterly captivating. A stunning new writer'' Bernardine Evaristobr>br>Come of age in the credit crunch. Be civil in a hostile environment. Step out into a world of Go Home vans. Go to Oxbridge, get an education, start a career. Do all the right things. Buy a flat. Buy art. Buy a sort of happiness. But above all, keep your head down. Keep quiet. And keep going.br>br>The narrator of Assembly is a Black British woman. She is preparing to attend a lavish garden party at her boyfriend''s family estate, set deep in the English countryside. At the same time, she is considering the carefully assembled pieces of herself. As the minutes tick down and the future beckons, she can''t escape the question: is it time to take it all apart?br>br>Assembly is a story about the stories we live within - those of race and class, safety and freedom, winners and losers. And it is about one woman daring to take control of her own story, even at the cost of her life.br>br>''One of the most talked-about debuts of the year . . . You''ll read it in one sitting'' Sunday Times Stylebr>br>''Expertly crafted, remarkable, astonishing... A literary debut with flavours of Jordan Peele''s Get Out'' Bookseller, Editor''s Choicebr>br>''Virginia Woolf''s Mrs. Dalloway meets Citizen by Claudia Rankine... As breathtakingly graceful as it is mercilessly true'' Olivia Sudjicbr>br>''Bold and original, with a cool intelligence, and so very truthful about the colonialist structure of British society'' Diana Evansbr>br>''This marvel of a novel manages to say all there is to say about Britain today'' Sabrina Mahfouz>
Nine Lives is a thought-provoking story of lost love and new beginnings, by the number one bestseller Danielle Steel. After a carefree childhood, Maggie Kelly came of age in the shadow of grief. Her father, a pilot, died when she was nine. Maggie saw her mother struggle to put their lives back together. As the family moved from one city to the next, her mother warned her about daredevil men and to avoid risk at all cost. Following her mother''s advice, and forgoing the magic of first love with a high-school boyfriend who she thought too wild, Maggie married a good, dependable man. Together they had a son and found happiness in a conventional suburban life - until tragedy struck again. Now on her own, feeling a sense of adventure for the first time, Maggie decides to face her fears, setting off on a whirlwind trip from the US to Rome, Paris, London and Monaco. But when her travels reconnect her with the irresistible, thrill-seeking man she''s spent thirty years trying to forget, Maggie is terrified that rushing into love and sharing his life may end in disaster. But while Maggie tries to outrun her fears and painful memories, fate will surprise her in the most astounding of ways, as she walks the tightrope between danger and courage, and between wisdom and love.
Find hope in the unexpected in this unforgettable debut novel about grief and friendship, for readers of Patrick Ness, Sarah Winman and Max Porter. Isaac stands alone on a bridge and screams into the river below. And then, an answer. A cry of despair perhaps even greater than his own. The sound draws Isaac into the woods. What he finds there changes everything. It''s a tale that might seem familiar. A broken man and an unexpected guest, who can''t stay forever. But real life isn''t a story. It''s full of truths, messy and surprising, that Isaac has been hiding from his new, improbable friend... Powerful, hopeful and utterly extraordinary, this is a truly original tale of love and loss, told with warmth and imaginative humour, from an unforgettable new voice in fiction.
B>b>A Gentleman in Moscow meets Moulin Rouge in this stylish, sexy page-turner set in Paris on the eve of World War II, where Clementine, a queer American ex-pat and notorious thief, is drawn out of retirement and into one last scam when the Nazis invade./b>/b>br>br>Clementine is a seventy-two-year-old reformed con artist with a penchant for impeccably tailored suits. Her life of crime has led her from the uber-wealthy perfume junkies of belle epoque Manhattan, to the scented butterflies of Costa Rica, to the spice markets of Marrakech, and finally the bordellos of Paris, where she settles down in 1930 and opens a shop bottling her favorite extracts for the ladies of the cabarets.;br>br>Now it''s 1941 and Clem''s favorite haunt, Madame Boulette''s, is crawling with Nazis, while Clem''s people--the outsiders, the artists, and the hustlers who used to call it home--are disappearing. Clem''s first instinct is to go to ground--it''s a frigid Paris winter and she''s too old to put up a fight. But when the cabaret''s prize songbird, Zoe St. Angel, recruits Clem to steal the recipe book of a now-missing famous Parisian perfumer, she can''t say no. Her mark is Oskar Voss, a Francophile Nazi bureaucrat, who wants the book and Clem''s expertise to himself.;Hoping to buy the time and trust she needs to pull off her scheme, Clem settles on a novel strategy: Telling Voss the truth about the life and loves she came to Paris to escape.;br>br>Complete with romance, espionage, champagne towers, and haute couture, this full-tilt sensory experience is a dazzling portrait of the underground resistance of twentieth-century Paris and a passionate love letter to the power of beauty and community in the face of insidious hate.
#1 New York Times Bestseller What would happen if we called on God for help and God actually appeared? In Mitch Albom''s profound new novel of hope and faith, a group of shipwrecked passengers pull a strange man from the sea. He claims to be "the Lord." And he says he can only save them if they all believe in him. Adrift in a raft after a deadly ship explosion, ten people struggle for survival at sea. Three days pass. Short on water, food and hope, they spot a man floating in the waves. They pull him in. "Thank the Lord we found you," a passenger says. "I am the Lord," the man whispers. So begins Mitch Albom''s most beguiling and inspiring novel yet. Albom has written of heaven in the celebrated number one bestsellers The Five People You Meet in Heaven and The First Phone Call from Heaven . Now, for the first time in his fiction, he ponders what we would do if, after crying out for divine help, God actually appeared before us? What might the Lord look, sound and act like? In The Stranger in the Lifeboat, Albom keeps us guessing until the end: Is this strange and quiet man really who he claims to be? What actually happened to cause the explosion? Are the survivors already in heaven, or are they in hell? The story is narrated by Benji, one of the passengers, who recounts the events in a notebook that is later discovered--a year later--when the empty life raft washes up on the island of Montserrat. It falls to the island''s chief inspector, Jarty LeFleur, a man battling his own demons, to solve the mystery of what really happened. A fast-paced, compelling novel that makes you ponder your deepest beliefs, The Stranger in the Lifeboat suggests that answers to our prayers may be found where we least expect them.
An upcoming book to be published by Penguin Random House.>
''Laura Purcell just gets better and better'' - STACEY HALLS, bestselling author of The Familiars and Mrs England F rom the Sunday Times bestselling author comes a gripping tale of obsession, superstition and ambition, set against the atmospheric backdrop of Victorian London. Be careful what you wish for... it may just come true.
At The Mercury Theatre in London''s West End, rumours are circulating of a curse.
It is said that the lead actress Lilith has made a pact with Melpomene, the tragic muse of Greek mythology, to become the greatest actress to ever grace the stage. Suspicious of Lilith, the jealous wife of the theatre owner sends dresser Jenny to spy on her, and desperate for the money to help her family, Jenny agrees.
What Jenny finds is a woman as astonishing in her performance as she is provocative in nature. On stage, it''s as though Lilith is possessed by the characters she plays, yet off stage she is as tragic as the Muse who inspires her, and Jenny, sorry for her, befriends the troubled actress. But when strange events begin to take place around the theatre, Jenny wonders if the rumours are true, and fears that when the Muse comes calling for payment, the cost will be too high.
LAURA PURCELL''S THRILLING NEW NOVEL IS AVAILABLE TO PREORDER NOW