The Crooked Inheritance


Book Description

An “exquisite . . . spot on” (The Hudson Review) collection of poems from one of our best-loved and best-selling poets that is both personal, with poetry about love, nature and reflections on the stages of life, and political, ranging from the war in Iraq and Katrina to concerns such as women’s rights and the poet’s childhood in Detroit.




Colors Passing Through Us


Book Description

In Colors Passing Through Us, Marge Piercy is at the height of her powers, writing about what matters to her most: the lives of women, nature, Jewish ritual, love between men and women, and politics, sexual and otherwise. Feisty and funny as always, she turns a sharp eye on the world around her, bidding an exhausted farewell to the twentieth century and singing an "electronic breakdown blues" for the twenty-first. She memorializes movingly those who, like los desaparecidos and the victims of 9/11, disappear suddenly and without a trace. She writes an elegy for her mother, a woman who struggled with a deadening round o fhousework, washin gon Monday, ironing on Tuesday, and so on, "until stroke broke/her open." She remembers the scraps of lace, the touch of velvet, that were part of her maternal inheritance and fist aroused her sensual curiosity. Here are paeans to the pleasures of the natural world (rosy ripe tomatoes, a mating dance of hawks) as the poet confronts her own mortality in the cycle of seasons and the eternity of the cosmos: "iam hurrying, I am running hard / toward I don't know what, / but I mean to arrive before dark." Other poems--about her grandmother's passage from Russia to the New World, or the interrupting of a Passover seder to watch a comet pass--expand on Piercy's appreciation of Jewish life that won her so much acclaim in The Art of Blessing the Day. Colors Passing Through Us is a moving celebration of the endurance of love an dof the phenomenon of life itself--a book to treasure.




The Crooked Hinge


Book Description

An inheritance hangs in the balance in a case of stolen identities, imposters, and murder Banished from the idyllic English countryside he once called home and en route to live with his cousin in America, Sir John Farnleigh, black sheep of the wealthy Farnleigh clan, nearly perished in the sinking of the Titanic. Though he survived the catastrophe, his ties with his family did not, and he never returned to England—not even for the funerals of his mother, his father, or, most recently, his older brother Dudley. Now, nearly 25 years since he was first sent away, Sir John has finally returned home to claim his inheritance. But another “Sir John” soon follows, an unexpected man who insists he has absolute proof of his identity and of his claim to the estate. Before the case can be settled, however, one of the two men is murdered, and Dr. Gideon Fell, who happens to be passing through the village, finds himself facing one of the most challenging cases of his career. To solve it, he’ll have to confront a series of bizarre and chilling phenomena, diving deep into the realm of the occult and brushing up against witchcraft, magic, and a sinister automaton to explain a seemingly impossible crime. Selected by a panel of twelve mystery luminaries as one of the ten best locked-room mysteries of all time, The Crooked Hinge is a creepy and atmospheric puzzle inspired by a real life case. It is the ninth installment in the Dr. Gideon Fell series, which may be read in any order.




My Mother's Body


Book Description

My Mother's Body, Marge Piercy's tenth book of poetry, takes its title from one of her strongest and most moving poems, the climax of a powerful sequence of Poems to her mother. Rooted in an honest, harrowing, but ally ecstatic confrontation of the mother / daughter relationship in all its complexity and intimacy, it is at the same time an affirmation of continuity and identification. "The Chuppah" comprises poems actually used in her wedding ceremony with Ira Wood. This section sings with powerfully female love poetry. There is also a sustained and direct use of her Jewish identity and faith in these poems, as there is in a number of other poems throughout the volume. Readers of Piercy's previous collections will not be surprised to encounter her mixture of the personal and the political, her love of animals and the Cape landscape. There are poems about doing housework, about accidents, about dreaming, about bag ladies, about luggage, about children's fears of nuclear holocaust; about tomcats, insects in the rafters, the influence of a name, appleblossoms and blackberries, pollution, and some of the ways women objectify one another. In "Does the light fail us, or do we fail the light?" Piercy writes with lacerating honesty about our relationships with the elderly and about hers with her father. Some of the most moving poems are domestic, as in the final sequence, "Six underrated pleasures," which finds in daily women's tasks both pleasure and mystery, affirmation of serf and connection with the mother. In all, My Mother's Body is one of Piercy's most powerful and balanced collections.




Circles on the Water


Book Description

More than 150 poems from her seven books of poetry written between 1963 and 1982.




What Are Big Girls Made Of?


Book Description

Opening with a powerful cycle of elegies for her long-distant, half-brother, this major new collection by one of our bestselling poets then goes on to include both serious and funny poems about women and poems about the precarious balance of nature, ending with the beautiful, life-affirming "The Art of Blessing the Day." 160 pp.




On the Way Out, Turn Off the Light


Book Description

A bountiful group of poems--direct, honest, and revelatory--that reflect on language, nature, old age, young love, Judaism, and our current politics, from one of our most read and admired poets "Words are my business," Marge Piercy begins her twentieth collection of poetry, a glance back at a lifetime of learning, loving, grieving, and fighting for the disenfranchised, and a look forward at what the future holds for herself, her family and friends, and her embattled country. In the opening section, Piercy tells of her childhood in Detroit, with its vacant lots and scrappy children, the bike that gave her wings, her ambition at fourteen to "gobble" down all knowledge, and a too-early marriage ("I put on my first marriage / like a girdle my skinny body / didn't need"). We then leap into the present, her "twilight zone," where she is "learning to be quiet," learning to give praise despite it all. There are funny poems about medicine ads with their dire warnings, and some possible plusses about being dead: "I'll never do another load of laundry . . ." There is "comfort in old bodies / coming together," in a partner's warmth--"You're always warm: warm hands / smooth back sleek as a Burmese cat./ Sunny weather outside and in." Piercy has long been known for her political poems, and here we have her thoughts on illegal immigrants, dying languages, fraught landscapes, abortion, President-speak. She examines her nonbeliever's need for religious holidays and spiritual depth, and the natural world is appreciated throughout. On the Way Out, Turn Off the Light is yet more proof of Piercy's love and mastery of language--it is moving, stimulating, funny, and full of the stuff of life.




He, She and It


Book Description

"A triumph of the imagination. Rich, complex, impossible to put down."—Alice Hoffman In the middle of the twenty-first century, life as we know it has changed for all time. Shira Shipman's marriage has broken up, and her young son has been taken from her by the corporation that runs her zone, so she has returned to Tikva, the Jewish free town where she grew up. There, she is welcomed by Malkah, the brilliant grandmother who raised her, and meets an extraordinary man who is not a man at all, but a unique cyborg implanted with intelligence, emotions—and the ability to kill. . . . From the imagination of Marge Piercy comes yet another stunning novel of morality and courage, a bold adventure of women, men, and the world of tomorrow.




Inheritance


Book Description

Reese and David are not normal teens-not since they were adapted with alien DNA by the Imria, an extraterrestrial race that has been secretly visiting Earth for decades. Now everyone is trying to get to them: the government, the Imria, and a mysterious corporation that would do anything for the upper hand against the aliens. Beyond the web of conspiracies, Reese can't reconcile her love for David with her feelings for her ex-girlfriend, Amber, an Imrian. But Reese's choice between two worlds will play a critical role in determining the future of humanity, the Imria's place in it, and the inheritance she and David will bring to the universe. In this gripping sequel to Adaptation, Malinda Lo brings a thoughtful exploration of adolescence, sexuality, and "the other" to a science-fiction thriller that is impossible to put down.




The High Cost of Living


Book Description

Passions flare in a most unlikely love triangle between three remarkable characters facing arduous life challenges in this engrossing novel by bestselling author Marge Piercy Heartbroken after her girlfriend leaves her for another woman, Leslie, a history grad student, follows her thesis advisor from Grand Rapids to Detroit for a fresh start. There she befriends seventeen-year-old Honor, who sparks a familiar passion within her. Feeling that she can’t act on her desire, she sleeps with Honor’s older friend, Bernard, a gay former street hustler who resents his past and, to make matters more complicated, also lusts for Honor. As the three grapple with issues of sexuality and identity, author Marge Piercy manages to be both intimately attuned to her characters’ emotions and aware of their role in a larger social and economic context. Leslie, Honor, and Bernard struggle financially in a city that doesn’t offer many opportunities, and they discover that expressing their sexuality and finding love may be privileges they cannot afford. “A novel as ambiguous and fascinating as life itself.” —The New York Times “Piercy goes over her subjects with a fine-tooth comb and provides food for thought about some of our directions, feelings and values.” —Publishers Weekly