Gobi
Submitted
Florida
FINALIST FOR THE 2018 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD
The universally acclaimed return of the New York Times bestselling author of Fates and Furies.
“Restorative fiction for these urgent times.” (The New York Times)
“Outstanding.” (The Boston Globe)
“Marvelous.” (The Economist)
“Gorgeously weird and limber.” (The New Yorker)
“Easily the year’s best story collection.” (Vogue)
“Groff’s gifts as a writer just keep soaring higher and higher.” (NPR’s Fresh Air)
Florida is a “superlative” book (Boston Globe), “frequently funny” (San Francisco Chronicle), “brooding, inventive and often moving” (NPR Fresh Air) –as Groff is recognized as “Florida’s unofficial poet laureate, as Joan Didion was for California.” (Washington Post)
In her thrilling new book, Lauren Groff brings the reader into a physical world that is at once domestic and wild—a place where the hazards of the natural world lie waiting to pounce, yet the greatest threats and mysteries are still of an emotional, psychological nature. A family retreat can be derailed by a prowling panther, or by a sexual secret. Among those navigating this place are a resourceful pair of abandoned sisters; a lonely boy, grown up; a restless, childless couple, a searching, homeless woman; and an unforgettable, recurring character—a steely and conflicted wife and mother.
The stories in this collection span characters, towns, decades, even centuries, but Florida—its landscape, climate, history, and state of mind—becomes its gravitational center: an energy, a mood, as much as a place of residence. Groff transports the reader, then jolts us alert with a crackle of wit, a wave of sadness, a flash of cruelty, as she writes about loneliness, rage, family, and the passage of time. With shocking accuracy and effect, she pinpoints the moments and decisions and connections behind human pleasure and pain, hope and despair, love and fury—the moments that make us alive. Startling, precise, and affecting, Florida is a magnificent achievement.
I Wrote This Book Because I Love You: Essays
New York Times essayist and author of We Learn Nothing, Tim Kreider trains his virtuoso writing and singular power of observation on his (often befuddling) relationships with women.
Psychologists have told him he’s a psychologist. Philosophers have told him he’s a philosopher. Religious groups have invited him to speak. He had a cult following as a cartoonist. But, above all else, Tim Kreider is an essayist—one whose deft prose, uncanny observations, dark humor, and emotional vulnerability have earned him deserved comparisons to David Sedaris, Sarah Vowell, and the late David Foster Wallace (who was himself a fan of Kreider’s humor).
In his new collection, I Wrote This Book Because I Love You, he focuses his unique perception and wit on his relationships with women—romantic, platonic, and the murky in-between. He talks about his difficulty finding lasting love, and seeks to understand his commitment issues by tracking down the John Hopkins psychologist who tested him for a groundbreaking study on attachment when he was a toddler. He talks about his valued female friendships, one of which landed him on a circus train bound for Mexico. He talks about his time teaching young women at an upstate New York college, and the profound lessons they wound up teaching him. And in a hugely popular essay that originally appeared in The New York Times, he talks about his nineteen-year-old cat, wondering if it’s the most enduring relationship he’ll ever have.
Each of these pieces is hilarious and profound, and collectively they further cement Kreider’s place among the best essayists working today.
Einstein: His Life and Universe
By the author of the acclaimed bestsellers Benjamin Franklin and Steve Jobs, this is the definitive biography of Albert Einstein.
How did his mind work? What made him a genius? Isaacson’s biography shows how his scientific imagination sprang from the rebellious nature of his personality. His fascinating story is a testament to the connection between creativity and freedom.
Based on newly released personal letters of Einstein, this book explores how an imaginative, impertinent patent clerk—a struggling father in a difficult marriage who couldn’t get a teaching job or a doctorate—became the mind reader of the creator of the cosmos, the locksmith of the mysteries of the atom, and the universe. His success came from questioning conventional wisdom and marveling at mysteries that struck others as mundane. This led him to embrace a morality and politics based on respect for free minds, free spirits, and free individuals.
These traits are just as vital for this new century of globalization, in which our success will depend on our creativity, as they were for the beginning of the last century, when Einstein helped usher in the modern age.
The Red King: A Soldier With Richard the Lionheart, Part II
With the long siege of Acre ended, Roger and the Death’s Heads join King Richard in the march on Jerusalem. Richard defeats Saladin at the battle of Arsuf, but is reluctant to move on the Holy City because he fears a trap. Richard tries to hold his fractious army together and lure Saladin to destruction, but he faces a challenge to his leadership from Conrad of Montferrat. Meanwhile, Fauston gets rich selling relics, and Roger attempts to rescue Ailith, who is being held as a slave by the emir Qaymaz.
Melody Hill: Prequel to The Gomorrah Principle
Duff Coleridge has joined the military and is leaving Melody Hill, his home in the misty mountains of Tennessee. It is 1966, and he is going to the war in Vietnam, but Duff has no choice. It was his only chance for a better life—something he needs desperately if he’s going to support his mother, sister and foster brother. Leaving them behind, he soon finds himself in a war he can’t even write home about.
With incredible marksmanship skill and the instincts of a natural warrior, Duff rapidly accelerates through the ranks until he draws the attention of someone in the shadowy world of black ops. Recruited into a Special Operations Group under a CIA boss who seems more rogue than company man, Duff soon regrets his new role. And when a beautiful but mysterious Vietnamese woman approaches him, Duff finds himself trapped in a web of love, lies, and loyalty. Should he trust his dubious leader’s assessment of this woman as a Vietcong spy, or should he trust his own instincts? Knowing that either decision could lead him into a deadly trap, Duff races to determine the truth before it’s too late.
Expertly crafted with historical accuracy and the author’s real-life military experiences as a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division, Melody Hill is a story you don’t want to miss. Book #1 of the Vietnam War Series, it is a thrilling prequel to Rick DeStefanis’s award-winning novel, The Gomorrah Principle.