One Way Ticket to Paris


Book Description

When I was a kid and I’d lost something, my dad always said ‘Go back to the place you last had it’. The problem is that what I’ve lost is… me. Kate loves her family more than anything, but recently she has started to feel invisible. Lying awake at three a.m. as her husband snores, panicking about shopping lists, birthday parties, and the school bake sale… She finds herself in the kitchen, gulping water, staring at a postcard of the Eiffel Tower from Shannon, her best friend. Paris, with its red wine, slippery cobbles and curly lamp posts. Where the scent of freshly-baked croissants hangs in the air, and Kate last remembers feeling like herself. The postcard is a year old. It has just one line on it: When are you coming? An inspiring, feel-good tale of friendship, love, and what happens when running away is the only way you can find your way home. Perfect for fans of Sophie Kinsella, Jane Green and Marian Keyes. Readers are loving One Way Ticket to Paris: ‘I absolutely adored this book… fantastically funny and heartbreakingly sad… a true feel-good rom-com.’ Goodreads reviewer, 5 stars ‘I just loved this book, it was a truly heartfelt and honest story that warmed my heart. I devoured it in one sitting… a perfect read and one not to be missed. I love this book and everything it stands for and couldn't recommend it highly enough.’ Stacy is Reading, 5 stars ‘Funny, emotive, romantic and ultimately heartwarming… I was hooked on the story… I just couldn’t stop reading… Seriously fantastic’ Ginger Book Geek, 5 stars ‘I simply adored this book… The author has very cleverly captured each character’s emotions in where they are in life and I totally related to this… This is just a wonderful feel good book.’ Goodreads reviewer, 5 stars ‘I absolutely loved this book… It is so much fun and I think that everyone can relate to one of the characters.’ Goodreads reviewer, 5 stars ‘What a lovely read!... . I was thoroughly engrossed.’ Netgalley reviewer ‘So relatable it will touch the heart of any reader… I was so involved I didn't realise there were tears rolling down my cheeks.’ Rona Halsall ‘What a fun heartwarming story, set against the backdrop of a beautiful Paris!... So relatable… she tells you like it is in an engaging and humorous way… a lot of fun, a lot of emotion, and a lot of heart!’ Audio Killed the Bookmark ‘Warm and compelling… I was hooked on this book from page one.’ A Little Book Problem ‘I could really identify with Kate. I remember those times of feeling lost and alone and wanting to escape anywhere in the world. It’s a good job I couldn’t get on the Eurostar to Paris because I might have gone!... A wonderful story with characters and a plot so compelling that I couldn’t stop reading.’ Secret Library Book Blog ‘A lovely, heart-warming read…I had to read it from start to finish in one sitting.’ Meanderings and Muses ‘Poignant and thought provoking… I thoroughly enjoyed this heartwarming, thoughtful read… Definitely a story written from the heart – I loved it.’ The Writing Garnet, 5 stars ‘What I love about this author is that she can make me laugh and cry all in one go... A beautiful feel-good book of friendship and love which had me chuckling to myself one minute then wiping away tears the next.’ Stardust Book Reviews ‘This story made me laugh, but made me emotional as well… Excellent.’ B for Bookreview, 5 stars




Paris to the Moon


Book Description

Paris. The name alone conjures images of chestnut-lined boulevards, sidewalk cafés, breathtaking façades around every corner--in short, an exquisite romanticism that has captured the American imagination for as long as there have been Americans. In 1995, Adam Gopnik, his wife, and their infant son left the familiar comforts and hassles of New York City for the urbane glamour of the City of Light. Gopnik is a longtime New Yorker writer, and the magazine has sent its writers to Paris for decades--but his was above all a personal pilgrimage to the place that had for so long been the undisputed capital of everything cultural and beautiful. It was also the opportunity to raise a child who would know what it was to romp in the Luxembourg Gardens, to enjoy a croque monsieur in a Left Bank café--a child (and perhaps a father, too) who would have a grasp of that Parisian sense of style we Americans find so elusive. So, in the grand tradition of the American abroad, Gopnik walked the paths of the Tuileries, enjoyed philosophical discussions at his local bistro, wrote as violet twilight fell on the arrondissements. Of course, as readers of Gopnik's beloved and award-winning "Paris Journals" in The New Yorker know, there was also the matter of raising a child and carrying on with day-to-day, not-so-fabled life. Evenings with French intellectuals preceded middle-of-the-night baby feedings; afternoons were filled with trips to the Musée d'Orsay and pinball games; weekday leftovers were eaten while three-star chefs debated a "culinary crisis." As Gopnik describes in this funny and tender book, the dual processes of navigating a foreign city and becoming a parent are not completely dissimilar journeys--both hold new routines, new languages, a new set of rules by which everyday life is lived. With singular wit and insight, Gopnik weaves the magical with the mundane in a wholly delightful, often hilarious look at what it was to be an American family man in Paris at the end of the twentieth century. "We went to Paris for a sentimental reeducation-I did anyway-even though the sentiments we were instructed in were not the ones we were expecting to learn, which I believe is why they call it an education."




The Price of the Ticket


Book Description

An essential compendium of James Baldwin’s most powerful nonfiction work, calling on us “to end the racial nightmare, and achieve our country.” Personal and prophetic, these essays uncover what it means to live in a racist American society with insights that feel as fresh today as they did over the 4 decades in which he composed them. Longtime Baldwin fans and especially those just discovering his genius will appreciate this essential collection of his great nonfiction writing, available for the first time in affordable paperback. Along with 46 additional pieces, it includes the full text of dozens of famous essays from such books as: • Notes of a Native Son • Nobody Knows My Name • The Fire Next Time • No Name in the Street • The Devil Finds Work This collection provides the perfect entrée into Baldwin’s prescient commentary on race, sexuality, and identity in an unjust American society.




Hidden in Paris


Book Description

A socially awkward widow is forced to take boarders into her Paris home, in this smart, witty novel of love, loneliness, friendship, and metamorphosis. Living in France among people she hardly understands, Annie has had trouble leaving the house since the death of her husband. And since home happens to be a small place nestled in the heart of Paris, why would she ever want to? But when unexpected events threaten her beloved home, Annie has no choice but to find lodgers—quickly. After placing an ad, Annie attracts tenants with the kind of baggage she isn’t prepared for: a long-legged, cool-headed ex-model on the run from her abusive husband; a frail young woman harboring a possible death wish; a mysterious artist; and an infuriating blue-blooded Frenchman—and all soon threaten Annie’s way of life in ways she never anticipated. But when Annie finds herself reluctantly but actively engaged in the lives of her tenants she discovers she might just free herself in the process . . .




Come from Away


Book Description

From the bestselling author of Tides of Honour and Promises to Keep comes a poignant novel about a young couple caught on opposite sides of the Second World War. In the fall of 1939, Grace Baker’s three brothers, sharp and proud in their uniforms, board Canadian ships headed for a faraway war. Grace stays behind, tending to the homefront and the general store that helps keep her small Nova Scotian community running. The war, everyone says, will be over before it starts. But three years later, the fighting rages on and rumours swirl about “wolf packs” of German U-Boats lurking in the deep waters along the shores of East Jeddore, a stone’s throw from Grace’s window. As the harsh realities of war come closer to home, Grace buries herself in her work at the store. Then, one day, a handsome stranger ventures into the store. He claims to be a trapper come from away, and as Grace gets to know him, she becomes enamoured by his gentle smile and thoughtful ways. But after several weeks, she discovers that Rudi, her mysterious visitor, is not the lonely outsider he appears to be. He is someone else entirely—someone not to be trusted. When a shocking truth about her family forces Grace to question everything she has so strongly believed, she realizes that she and Rudi have more in common than she had thought. And if Grace is to have a chance at love, she must not only choose a side, but take a stand. Come from Away is a mesmerizing story of love, shifting allegiances, and second chances, set against the tumultuous years of the Second World War.







Five Days in Paris


Book Description

In Danielle Steel’s beloved #1 New York Times bestselling novel, two strangers meet unexpectedly and fall in love in the City of Light. As president of a major pharmaceutical empire, Peter Haskell has everything: power, position, and a family that means everything to him. Compromise has been key in Peter Haskell’s life, and integrity is the base on which he lives. Olivia Thatcher is the wife of a famous senator. She has given to her husband’s ambition and career until her soul is bone-dry. She is trapped in a web of duty and obligation, married to a man she once loved and no longer even knows. Accidentally, they meet in Paris. Their totally different lives converge for one magical moment in the Place Vendôme, as Olivia carefully, silently, steps out of her life and walks away. Peter follows her, and in a café in Montmartre, their hearts are laid bare. Peter, once so certain of his path, is suddenly faced with a professional future in jeopardy. Olivia is no longer sure of anything except that she can’t go on anymore. Five days in Paris is all they have. They go back to their separate lives, but nothing is the same. Everything they believe is put on the line, until they each realize they must stand fast against compromise and face life’s challenges head-on. Danielle Steel’s classic novel is about honor and commitment, love and integrity—and the strength to find hope again. Five Days in Paris will change your life forever. BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Danielle Steel's Hotel Vendome.




One-Way Tickets


Book Description

In One-Way Tickets, Borinsky offers up a splendid tour across 20th-century literatures, providing a literary travelogue to writers and artists in exile. She describes their challenges in adjusting to new homelands, issues of identity and language, and the brilliant works produced under the discomforts and stresses of belonging nowhere. Speaking with the authority of first-hand experience, Borinsky relates the story of her own family—Eastern European Jews, with one-way tickets to Buenos Aires, refugees from the countries that “spat them out and massacred those who stayed on.” Borinksy herself becomes an exile, fleeing Argentina after the take-over of a bloody military dictatorship. She understood, then, her grandfather’s lessons: “There’s nothing like languages to save your life, open your mind, speed you away from persecution.” As a writer of poetry, fiction, and essays, the author also knows intimately the struggles of writing from between worlds, between languages. In these pages, we encounter Russian Vladimir Nabokov, writing in English in the United States; Argentine writer Julio Cortázar in Paris; Polish writer, Witold Gombrowicz in Buenos Aires; Alejandra Pizarnik, Argentine writer for whom exile is a state of mind; Jorge Luis Borges, labyrinthine traveler in time and space; Isaac Bashevis Singer, a Jewish writer in New York driven from Poland by the Nazis; Latino writers Oscar Hijuelos, Cristina Garcia, and Junot Diaz; and Clarice Lispector, transplanted from Ukraine, to Brazil, to Europe, and the United States. Not surprisingly, these charismatic and artistic people, as well as many others in Borinsky’s nearly encyclopedic associations, inhabit equally intriguing circles. She introduces us to a wide range of friends and lovers, mentors and detractors, compatriots and hosts. We come away with a terrific breadth of knowledge of 20th-century literature and culture in exile—its uneasy obsessions, its difficult peace, its hard-won success.




The Undercover Mother


Book Description




One Time in Paris


Book Description

In the 1960s, Wade Stevenson sought both escape and an "elsewhere" he could call his own. After a brief stint at the University of California at Berkeley, he returned to New York, only to have his own father commit him to a mental institution. That committal turned out to be prophetic. One day he heard the plaintive notes of a flute somewhere nearby. A troubled teen named Cynthia was creating those wistful melodies. Leaving both Cynthia and the asylum behind, Wade worked on an oil tanker, which took him to Le Havre, France. There Wade began a journey of romance, love, and passion as his path fatefully crossed once again with Cynthia's. Wade knew he and Cynthia shared a vision and a vital desire to guide their destinies. Their kindred spirits led them on extraordinary adventures. Together, they explored their boundaries with sex, love, and drugs in their quest for spiritual freedom. In this touching and intimate memoir, Wade recounts the Paris he knew, with its sensuality and light, love and art-but also an ultimate loss. Like many before him, Wade immersed himself in love, only to realize that the woman of his heart could never belong to him.