Sublime roman [...] Harlem Shuffle est un page turner comme Colson Whitehead sait si bien en faire. Livres HebdoPetites arnaques, embrouilles et lutte des classes... La fresque irrésistible du Harlem des années 1960.Époux aimant, père de famille attentionné et fils d'un homme de main lié à la pègre locale, Ray Carney, vendeur de meubles et d'électroménager à New York sur la 125e Rue, « n'est pas un voyou, tout juste un peu filou ». Jusqu'à ce que son cousin lui propose de cambrioler le célèbre Hôtel Theresa, surnommé le Waldorf de Harlem...Chink Montague, habile à manier le coupe-chou, Pepper, vétéran de la Seconde Guerre mondiale, Miami Joe, gangster tout de violet vêtu, et autres flics véreux ou pornographes pyromanes composent le paysage de ce roman féroce et drôle. Mais son personnage principal est Harlem, haut lieu de la lutte pour les droits civiques, où la mort d'un adolescent noir, abattu par un policier blanc, déclencha en 1964 des émeutes préfigurant celles qui ont eu lieu à la mort de George Floyd.Avec Harlem Shuffle, qui revendique l'héritage de Chester Himes et Donald Westlake, Colson Whitehead se réinvente une fois encore en détournant les codes du roman noir. C'est vivant, bruyant, caracolant. C'est Whitehead. L'Obs Un réjouissant tourbillon [...] Une belle leçon d'histoire et d'humanité en mode thriller. Les Echos
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.
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?
Dans la chaleur étouffante de l'été 1995, Joan North, sa mère et sa soeur cadette trouvent refuge, loin de la violence de leur père et mari, dans la majestueuse maison familiale à Memphis. Mais les tragédies des générations qui les ont précédées dans cette demeure viennent rapidement rappeler à Joan que la violence n'est jamais loin...
Le portrait bouleversant de trois générations de femmes, célébrant la complexité de ce qui se transmet au sein d'une famille et d'une nation tout entière.
Depuis ses premiers livres, Tessa Hadley explore le réseau complexe des vies conjugales, amoureuses et sentimentales de ses contemporains. L'intrigue de ce huitième roman confronte l'histoire de plusieurs générations autour du choix libérateur de son héroïne, qui prend tous les risques pour assumer son épanouissement personnel.
Dans l'Angleterre de la fin des années 1960, Phyllis Fischer, épouse et mère quadragénaire, s'éprend de Nicholas Knight, le jeune fils d'amis de son mari. Pour lui, elle abandonne son foyer et les conventions d'un ordre social devenu moralement inacceptable. Tout en s'apercevant que son amant n'est pas exactement celui qui lui convient, elle tombe enceinte et décide de garder l'enfant, qu'elle est heureuse d'élever.
Dans ce style fluide et raffiné qui lui permet de sonder admirablement la psychologie de ses personnages, Tessa Hadley décrit aussi bien le quotidien des classes sociales supérieures que la vie de bohème et les idées nouvelles à l'heure de la révolution sexuelle. La condition féminine est une question centrale, sans être traitée sous l'aspect du militantisme : seule compte la volonté d'une femme désireuse d'être elle-même en découvrant que l'âge mûr ne saurait être un obstacle aux plaisirs de la chair. Phyllis découvre le droit de conjuguer jouissance et maternité en bousculant tous les tabous.
A GUARDIAN BEST FICTION PICK OF 2021 ''Serious novels are rarely this fun'' The Times ''A gift'' Guardian ''Buoyant with humanity'' Daily Mail ''Worth the seven year wait'' Stylist When everything is lost, it''s our stories that survive How do we weather the end of things? Cloud Cuckoo Land brings together an unforgettable cast of dreamers and outsiders from past, present and future to offer a vision of survival against all odds.
Constantinople, 1453: An orphaned seamstress and a cursed boy with a love for animals risk everything on opposite sides of a city wall to protect the people they love.
Idaho, 2020:
An impoverished, idealistic kid seeks revenge on a world that''s crumbling around him. Can he go through with it when a gentle old man stands between him and his plans?
Unknown, Sometime in the Future:
With her tiny community in peril, Konstance is the last hope for the human race. To find a way forward, she must look to the oldest stories of all for guidance.
Bound together by a single ancient text, these tales interweave to form a tapestry of solace and resilience and a celebration of storytelling itself. Like its predecessor All the Light We Cannot See , Anthony Doerr''s new novel is a tale of hope and of profound human connection.
Cette satire féroce des États-Unis en proie à la folie, incroyablement drôle, raconte l'histoire d'un grand navire, la Gloire, et de son capitaine bruyant et grotesque qui le conduit au bord du désastre. La Gloire était habilement commandé depuis des années, mais lorsque son capitaine bien-aimé décide de prendre sa retraite, un nouveau chef se présente. Portant une plume jaune dans les cheveux, il est vulgaire, maladroit et inexplicablement confiant. N'ayant aucune connaissance de la navigation ou du droit maritime - ni même, comme il l'a fait remarquer à plusieurs reprises, un goût particulier pour les bateaux, il jure solennellement de prendre les choses en mains. Il commencer par licencier l'équipage et nomme ses amis aux postes importants.
Alors qu'il dirige le navire, il lui arrive parfois de tourner soudainement à gauche et à droite, pour surprendre les passagers et faire bouger les choses. Entouré de son groupe de petits voleurs et d'hommes de confiance, il fascine les passagers, écrivant ses opinions sur le tableau blanc de la cafétéria, se vantant de son anatomie exceptionnelle, dévorant des cheeseburgers et jetant par-dessus bord quiconque lui déplaît. Jusqu'au jour où apparaît à l'horizon un célèbre pirate, longtemps redouté par les passagers de la Gloire mais vénéré par le Capitaine pour son apparence incroyablement virile lorsqu'il monte torse-nu à cheval...
SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2021 LONGLISTED FOR THE 2022 ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE IN FICTION LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD 2021 AN OPRAH''S BOOK CLUB SELECTION AN AMAZON BEST BOOK OF SEPTEMBER 2021 THE BRAND NEW NOVEL FROM THE PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING, BOOKER PRIZE-SHORTLISTED AUTHOR OF THE OVERSTORY ''Powers has extraordinary gifts as a writer'' Guardian ''Impressively precise in its scientific conjectures, Bewilderment is no less rich or wise in its emotionality'' Observer ''He composes some of the most beautiful sentences I''ve ever read. I''m in awe of his talent'' Oprah Winfrey _________________________ Theo Byrne is a promising young scientist who has found a way to search for life on other planets dozens of light years away. He is also the widowed father of a most unusual nine-year-old. His son Robin is funny, loving and filled with plans. He thinks and feels deeply, adores animals and can spend hours painting elaborate pictures. He is also on the verge of being expelled from school for smashing his friend''s face with a thermos. What can a father do, when the only solution offered to his rare and troubled boy is to put him on psychoactive drugs? What can he say when his boy comes to him wanting an explanation for a world that is clearly in love with its own destruction? The only thing for it is to take the boy to other planets, all while fostering his son''s desperate attempt to save this one. At the heart of Bewilderment lies the question: How can we tell our children the truth about this beautiful, imperiled planet?
From the bestselling author Ken Follett, The Evening and the Morning is a historical epic that will end where The Pillars of the Earth begins. A TIME OF CONFLICT It is 997 CE, the end of the Dark Ages, and England faces attacks from the Welsh in the west and the Vikings in the east. Life is hard, and those with power wield it harshly, bending justice according to their will - often in conflict with the king. With his grip on the country fragile and with no clear rule of law, chaos and bloodshed reign. THREE LIVES INTERTWINED Into this uncertain world three people come to the fore: a young boatbuilder, who dreams of a better future when a devastating Viking raid shatters the life that he and the woman he loves hoped for; a Norman noblewoman, who follows her beloved husband across the sea to a new land only to find her life there shockingly different; and a capable monk at Shiring Abbey, who dreams of transforming his humble abbey into a centre of learning admired throughout Europe. THE DAWN OF A NEW AGE Now, with England at the dawn of the Middle Ages, these three people will each come into dangerous conflict with a ruthless bishop, who will do anything to increase his wealth and power, in an epic tale of ambition and rivalry, death and birth, and love and hate. Thirty years ago we were introduced to Kingsbridge in The Pillars of the Earth , and now in this masterful prequel international bestseller Ken Follett will take us on a journey into a rich past, which will end where his masterpiece begins.
From the internationally bestselling and prize-winning author of THE SONG OF ACHILLES and CIRCE , an enchanting short story that boldly reimagines the myth of Galatea.
''Mythology''s bold new voice'' i **A giftable hardback edition featuring a new foreword by Madeline Miller** In Ancient Greece, a skilled marble sculptor has been blessed by a goddess who has given his masterpiece - the most beautiful woman the town has ever seen - the gift of life. Now his wife, Galatea is expected to be obedience and humility personified, but it is not long before she learns to use her beauty as a form of manipulation.
In a desperate bid by her obsessive husband to keep her under control, she is locked away under the constant supervision of doctors and nurses. But with a daughter to rescue, she is determined to break free, whatever the cost...
_________________________ Praise for CIRCE ''A thrilling tour de force of imagination'' Mail on Sunday ''A bold and subversive retelling'' New York Times ''A novel to be gobbled greedily in one sitting'' Observer ''A remarkable achievement'' Sunday Times
FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF EXPECTATIONbr>_________________________________________br>br>I see you. Inside the cage you have been given. The cage you have made. The cages we have all madebr>br>It''s 2020 and an Englishwoman is journeying with her husband and young daughter to the white rock off the coast of Mexico, to give thanks for the birth of their child, even as her faith in her marriage - and the future itself - is unravelling.br>br>It is 1969 and a singer, on the run from the law, from his rabid fans and from an America burning with the fever of the Vietnam War, washes up in a hotel at the edge of Mexico, hoping to lose - and maybe find - himself.br>br>In the first years of the Twentieth Century, a girl and her sister are torn from their homeland and taken by force to the coast. As their future is recast in the name of progress and power, she turns to the stories of her people to keep them alive.br>br>And in 1775 a young Lieutenant of the Spanish line, preparing to set sail from the White Rock to continue the conquest of the Pacific coast, appears to lose his grip on reality, with far-reaching and fatal consequences ...br>br>The White Rock is a breathtaking novel of lives echoing through time, of the many forms of violence and love, and what happens when the stories we have lived by can no longer keep us safe.br>__________________________________br>br>PRAISE FOR ANNA HOPEbr>br>''Profoundly intelligent and humane.'' Guardianbr>br>''Thoughtful, beautifully written, honest. A sensual book.'' Marian Keyes on Expectation>
One of our best contemporary storytellers. . . Trio embraces comedy, tragedy and redemption. It succeeds impressively because of its dramatic, often sensational, revelations>
Un écrivain néerlandais pose ses valises au Grand Hotel Europa, un palace à la splendeur délabrée.
Il vient de rompre avec son grand amour, Clio, historienne de l'art passionnée, et souhaite coucher sur le papier leur tumultueuse histoire. Si l'écriture est un remède à sa désolation, les autres clients et le personnel de l'hôtel le sont tout autant.
Il y a là Abdul, le groom, rescapé d'un naufrage en Méditerranée ; M. Montebello, le majordome, nostalgique d'un passé fastueux ; un armateur crétois ; une poétesse française et, surtout, M. Wang, le nouveau propriétaire chinois, décidé à rendre l'endroit attractif pour ses congénères...
The international #1 bestselling author of The Notebook , Nicholas Sparks is back with his most epic story yet. What if the person you needed most, turned up when you least expected them? Maggie hasn''t told this story in years. More than two decades ago, she fell in love. She was sixteen and far from home, waiting to give her baby up for adoption. Bryce showed Maggie how to take photographs and he didn''t judge her for the way her belly swelled under her jumper. They had the perfect first kiss. Theirs was a once-in-a-lifetime kind of love. Now, as Maggie sits by the Christmas tree in her gallery telling her story, surrounded by the photographs that made her famous - the photographs Bryce never saw - her new gallery assistant asks her a question. If she had one wish, what would she wish for this Christmas? Maggie always thought she knew the answer to that question. But before she can say ''I''d go back to that winter with Bryce'', she stops herself. It is all she has ever wanted but suddenly here, on this dark night under the twinkling stars, there is something else she wants. She wants to find her baby. A heart-wrenching and uplifting story about discovery and loss, The Wish is a reminder that time with those precious to us is the greatest gift of all. * Praise for Nicholas Sparks: ''This one won''t leave a dry eye'' Daily Mirror ''A fiercely romantic and touching tale'' Heat ''An A-grade romantic read'' OK! ''Pulls at the heartstrings'' Sunday Times ''An absorbing page-turner'' Daily Mail
From Booker-prizewinner Douglas Stuart an extraordinary, page-turning second novel, a vivid portrayal of working-class life and a highly suspenseful story of the dangerous first love of two young men: Mungo and James. Born under different stars, Protestant Mungo and Catholic James live in the hyper-masculine and violently sectarian world of Glasgow''s housing estates. They should be sworn enemies if they''re to be seen as men at all, and yet they become best friends as they find a sanctuary in the pigeon dovecote that James has built for his prize racing birds. As they find themselves falling in love, they dream of escaping the grey city, and Mungo works especially hard to hide his true self from all those around him, especially from his elder brother Hamish, a local gang leader with a brutal reputation to uphold. But the threat of discovery is constant and the punishment unspeakable. When Mungo''s mother sends him on a fishing trip to a loch in Western Scotland with two strange men whose drunken banter belies murky pasts, he will need to summon all his inner strength and courage to get back to a place of safety, a place where he and James might still have a future. Imbuing the everyday world of its characters with rich lyricism and giving full voice to people rarely acknowledged in literary fiction, Douglas Stuart''s Young Mungo is a gripping and revealing story about the bounds of masculinity, the push and pull of family, the violence faced by so many queer people, and the dangers of loving someone too much.
THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER br>br>Following her bestselling, critically acclaimed The Silence of the Girls, Pat Barker continues her extraordinary retelling of one of our greatest myths.br>br>''Myth for a MeToo age. Pat Barker returns to Homer in this gory but unexpectedly uplifting novel'' Sunday Timesbr>br>Troy has fallen. The Greeks have won their bitter war. They can return home as victors - all they need is a good wind to lift their sails. But the wind has vanished, the seas becalmed by vengeful gods, and so the warriors remain in limbo - camped in the shadow of the city they destroyed, kept company by the women they stole from it.br>br>The women of Troy.br>br>Helen - poor Helen. All that beauty, all that grace - and she was just a mouldy old bone for feral dogs to fight over.br>br>Cassandra, who has learned not to be too attached to her own prophecies. They have only ever been believed when she can get a man to deliver them.br>br>Stubborn Amina, with her gaze still fixed on the ruined towers of Troy, determined to avenge the slaughter of her king.br>br>Hecuba, howling and clawing her cheeks on the silent shore, as if she could make her cries heard in the gloomy halls of Hades. As if she could wake the dead.br>br>And Briseis, carrying her future in her womb: the unborn child of the dead hero Achilles. Once again caught up in the disputes of violent men. Once again faced with the chance to shape history.br>br>Masterful and enduringly resonant, ambitious and intimate, The Women of Troy continues Pat Barker''s extraordinary retelling of one of our greatest classical myths, following on from the critically acclaimed The Silence of the Girls.br>br>''Readers turn to Barker''s novels for their plain truths and clear-eyed sense of our history and creation stories. But the sombre clarity of her writing is offset by a luminous wisdom'' Sunday Timesbr>br>''The Women Of Troy''s immediate beauty is its accessibility and Barker''s precise, elegant writing'' Metrobr>br>''Barker has always looked on the world with the combination of a cold eye and a sympathetic understanding. Her characterisation is sharp, her sympathy deep'' ipaper>
The Number One Sunday Times Bestseller. An absorbing historical fantasy, She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan reimagines the rise to power of the Ming Dynasty''s founding emperor. '' This audacious, brilliant debut is a vivid, original reimagining . . . immersive storytelling at its finest '' - Daily Mail ''Magnificent in every way. War, desire, vengeance, politics - Shelley Parker-Chan has perfectly measured each ingredient'' - Samantha Shannon, author of The Priory of the Orange Tree ''A thoroughly engrossing read with a fabulous, tragic-trickster protagonist'' - Megan Campisi, author of Sin Eater ''A dazzling new world of fate, war, love and betrayal'' - Zen Cho, author of Black Water Sister In a famine-stricken village on a dusty plain, a seer shows two children their fates. For a family''s eighth-born son, there''s greatness. For the second daughter, nothing. In 1345, China lies restless under harsh Mongol rule. And when a bandit raid wipes out their home, the two children must somehow survive. Zhu Chongba despairs and gives in. But the girl resolves to overcome her destiny. So she takes her dead brother''s identity and begins her journey. Can Zhu escape what''s written in the stars, as rebellion sweeps the land? Or can she claim her brother''s greatness - and rise as high as she can dream? This is a glorious tale of love, loss, betrayal and triumph by a powerful new voice. ''As brilliant as Circe . . . a deft and dazzling triumph'' - Tasha Suri, author of The Jasmine Throne '' Epic, tragic and gorgeous '' - Alix E. Harrow, author of The Ten Thousand Doors of January She Who Became the Sun is a reimagining of the rise to power of Zhu Yuanzhang. Zhu was the peasant rebel who expelled the Mongols, unified China under native rule, and became the founding Emperor of the Ming Dynasty.
B>br>"Absorbing, delightful, hilarious, breathtaking and the best and most relevant novel I’ve read in what feels like forever." —Taffy Brodesser-Akner, The New York Times Book Review br>br>/b>Corbin College, not quite upstate New York, winter 1959–1960: Ruben Blum, a Jewish historian—but not an historian of the Jews—is co-opted onto a hiring committee to review the application of an exiled Israeli scholar specializing in the Spanish Inquisition. When Benzion Netanyahu shows up for an interview, family unexpectedly in tow, Blum plays the reluctant host to guests who proceed to lay waste to his American complacencies. Mixing fiction with nonfiction, the campus novel with the lecture, The Netanyahus is a wildly inventive, genre-bending comedy of blending, identity, and politics that finds Joshua Cohen at the height of his powers.
From the internationally best-selling author of The Buddha in the Atticbr>br>Alice is one of many for whom their town swimming pool has become the centre of their lives - a place of unexpected kinship, freedom, and ritual. But as Alice''s memory begins to splinter, her husband and daughter make the difficult choice to move her into a care home. There, as Alice reaches for the tethers of her past, her daughter must navigate the newly fractured landscape of their relationship.br>br>A story of family, of loss, of the burdens and consolations of caring for each other, The Swimmers is a stunning and unforgettable novel of our time.br>br>PRAISE FOR JULIE OTSUKA:br>br>"Otsuka''s keenly observed prose manages to capture whole histories in a sweep of gorgeous incantatory sentences" Marie Clairebr>br>"Powerfully moving . . . intensely lyrical . . . verges on the edge of poetry" Independentbr>br>"A tender, nuanced, empathetic exploration of the sorrows and consolations of a whole generation of women" Telegraph>
Susan Stokes-Chapman was born in 1985 and grew up in the historic Georgian city of Lichfield, Staffordshire. She studied for four years at Aberystwyth University, graduating with a BA in Education & English Literature and an MA in Creative Writing. Her debut novel, Pandora , was shortlisted for the Lucy Cavendish Fiction prize 2020 as well as longlisted for the Bath Novel Award that same year. You can find Susan on Instagram and Twitter under the handle @SStokesChapman. Her website is www.susanstokeschapman.com.>
''Humans naturally want to belong--it''s part of our biology. But our society makes us feel that we''re never good enough'' ELIZABETH ZOTT Scientist Elizabeth Zott knows exactly who she is. So when circumstances force her to become something she''s not - the star of the TV cooking show Supper at Six - things don''t go according to plan. ''Chemistry is change,'' she tells her restless audience of housewives, daring them to reconsider not just the dinner menu, but their own place in the world. That''s because Elizabeth''s show is not just about food. It''s about life, faith, hope, and especially science - the very things that feed our minds as well as our bodies. But for all Elizabeth''s rousing words, she feels a deep loneliness - a missing ingredient in her own life that reveals her fear of being a permanent outsider. Will Elizabeth Zott ever fit in? More to the point, should she?
When several children from the same village start succumbing to a mysterious illness, the quest to discover the cause has devastating and extraordinary consequences. ''Absolutely MAGNIFICENT: dark, witty, charming. I LOVED it.'' MARIAN KEYES ''Utterly absorbing'' LISA MCINERNEY ''Heart-rending, hilarious . . . it''s a belter'' LOUISE KENNEDY ''Blistering...glorious...written from the guts and from the heart.'' LUCY CALDWELL ''An original and exciting work that''s equal parts terrifying, hilarious and memorable.'' SUNDAY TIMES It is late June in Ballylack. Hannah Adger anticipates eight long weeks'' reprieve from school, but when her classmate Ross succumbs to a violent and mysterious illness, it marks the beginning of a summer like no other. As others fall ill, questions about what - or who - is responsible pitch the village into conflict and fearful disarray. Hannah is haunted by guilt as she remains healthy while her friends are struck down. Isolated and afraid, she prays for help. Elsewhere in the village, tempers simmer, panic escalates and long-buried secrets threaten to emerge. Bursting with Carson''s trademark wit, profound empathy and soaring imagination, The Raptures explores how tragedy can unite a small community - and tear it apart. At its heart is the extraordinary resilience of one young girl. As the world crumbles around her, she must find the courage to be different in a place where conforming feels like the only option available. Darkly funny, highly inventive and deeply moving, The Raptures is an unmissable novel of 2022.
It is October 1966 and William Lavery is having the night of his life at his first black-tie do. But, as the evening unfolds, news hits of a landslide at a coal mine. It has buried a school: Aberfan. William decides he must act, so he stands and volunteers to attend. It will be his first job as an embalmer, and it will be one he never forgets. His work that night will force him to think about the little boy he was, and the losses he has worked so hard to forget. But compassion can have surprising consequences, because -- as William discovers -- giving so much to others can sometimes help us heal ourselves.