The Fifth Avenue Story Society


Book Description

When five New Yorkers receive an anonymous, mysterious invitation to the Fifth Avenue Story Society, they suspect they’re victims of a practical joke. No one knows who sent the invitations or why. No one has heard of the literary society. And no one is prepared to reveal their deepest secrets to a roomful of strangers. Executive assistant Lexa is eager for a much-deserved promotion, but her boss is determined to keep her underemployed. Literature professor Jett is dealing with a broken heart, as well as a nagging suspicion his literary idol, Gordon Phipps Roth, might be a fraud. Uber driver Chuck just wants a second chance with his kids. Aging widower Ed is eager to write the true story of his incredible marriage. Coral, queen of the cosmetics industry, has broken her engagement and is on the verge of losing her great grandmother’s multimillion-dollar empire. Yet curiosity and loneliness bring them back week after week to the old library. And it’s there they discover the stories of their hearts, and the kind of friendship and love that heals their souls. Sweet, contemporary stand-alone novel Book length: approximately 100,000 words Includes discussion questions for book clubs




Reading Fiction in Antebellum America


Book Description

James L. Machor offers a sweeping exploration of how American fiction was received in both public and private spheres in the United States before the Civil War. Machor takes four antebellum authors—Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville, Catharine Sedgwick, and Caroline Chesebro'—and analyzes how their works were published, received, and interpreted. Drawing on discussions found in book reviews and in private letters and diaries, Machor examines how middle-class readers of the time engaged with contemporary fiction and how fiction reading evolved as an interpretative practice in nineteenth-century America. Through careful analysis, Machor illuminates how the reading practices of nineteenth-century Americans shaped not only the experiences of these writers at the time but also the way the writers were received in the twentieth century. What Machor reveals is that these authors were received in ways strikingly different from how they are currently read, thereby shedding significant light on their present status in the literary canon in comparison to their critical and popular positions in their own time. Machor deftly combines response and reception criticism and theory with work in the history of reading to engage with groundbreaking scholarship in historical hermeneutics. In so doing, Machor takes us ever closer to understanding the particular and varying reading strategies of historical audiences and how they impacted authors’ conceptions of their own readership.




The Charmed Wife


Book Description

"Genre-bending and darkly comic, Grushin's fourth novel is a weird and wonderful triumph." –O, the Oprah Magazine Cinderella wants her Prince Charming dead in this sophisticated fairy-tale for the twenty-first century. Cinderella married the man of her dreams--the perfect ending she deserved after diligently following all the fairy-tale rules. Yet now, thirteen and a half years later, things have gone badly wrong and her life is far from perfect. One night, fed up and exhausted, she sneaks out of the palace to get help from the Witch who, for a price, offers love potions to disgruntled housewives. But as the old hag flings the last ingredients into the cauldron, Cinderella doesn't ask for a love spell to win back her Prince Charming. Instead, she wants him dead. Endlessly surprising, wildly inventive, and decidedly modern, The Charmed Wife weaves together time and place, fantasy and reality, to conjure a world unlike any other. Nothing in it is quite what it seems--the twists and turns of its magical, dark, and swiftly shifting paths take us deep into the heart of what makes us unique, of romance and marriage, and of the very nature of storytelling.







Re Jane


Book Description

Jane Re--a half-Korean, half-American orphan--takes a position as an au pair for two Brooklyn academics and their daughter, but a brief sojourn in Seoul, where she reconnects with family, causes her to wonder if the man she loves is really the man for her as she tries to find balance between two cultures.




A Panorama of American Film Noir (1941-1953)


Book Description

This first book published on film noir established the genre--a classic, at last in translation.




A Deadly Inside Scoop


Book Description

This book kicks off a charming cozy mystery series set in an ice cream shop—with a fabulous cast of quirky characters. Recent MBA grad Bronwyn Crewse has just taken over her family's ice cream shop in Chagrin Falls, Ohio, and she's going back to basics. Win is renovating Crewse Creamery to restore its former glory, and filling the menu with delicious, homemade ice cream flavors—many from her grandmother’s original recipes. But unexpected construction delays mean she misses the summer season, and the shop has a literal cold opening: the day she opens her doors an early first snow descends on the village and keeps the customers away. To make matters worse, that evening, Win finds a body in the snow, and it turns out the dead man was a grifter with an old feud with the Crewse family. Soon, Win’s father is implicated in his death. It's not easy to juggle a new-to-her business while solving a crime, but Win is determined to do it. With the help of her quirky best friends and her tight-knit family, she'll catch the ice cold killer before she has a meltdown...




One in a Million


Book Description

“Delightful...As soul-warming as curling up with a cup of tea” Entertainment Weekly “Very, very funny... a balm on my troubled soul” Marie Claire




A Companion to Crime Fiction


Book Description

A Companion to Crime Fiction presents the definitive guide to this popular genre from its origins in the eighteenth century to the present day A collection of forty-seven newly commissioned essays from a team of leading scholars across the globe make this Companion the definitive guide to crime fiction Follows the development of the genre from its origins in the eighteenth century through to its phenomenal present day popularity Features full-length critical essays on the most significant authors and film-makers, from Arthur Conan Doyle and Dashiell Hammett to Alfred Hitchcock and Martin Scorsese exploring the ways in which they have shaped and influenced the field Includes extensive references to the most up-to-date scholarship, and a comprehensive bibliography




Netter's Sports Medicine E-Book


Book Description

Edited by past presidents of the American Medical Society for Sports Medicine, Netter's Sports Medicine, 2nd Edition, is a superbly illustrated, go-to sports medicine resource for the outpatient office, the training room, on the sideline, and for certification preparation. Designed for quick reference, this interdisciplinary reference by Drs. Christopher Madden, Margot Putukian, Eric McCarty, and Craig Young, is organized by both topic and sport, so you can find what you need quickly. Whether you are a primary care physician managing a common or unique musculoskeletal injury in an ambulatory setting ... an orthopaedic surgeon gaining insight about a medical or psychological problem foreign to the cast or operating room ... an athletic trainer figuring out a diagnosis in the training room ... or a physical therapist pursuing further in-depth sports medicine knowledge, this reference gives you the guidance you need to keep athletes and other active patients at the top of their game. - More than 1,000 superb Netter graphics, tables, figures, pictures, diagnostic images, and other medical artwork highlight the easy-to-read, bulleted text. - Ideal for the sports clinician, team physician, and any health care professionals who provide care to athletes and active individuals. - New chapters on travel considerations for the athlete, EKG interpretation, cardiac disease, diagnostic imaging and ultrasound, injury prevention protocols, equestrian sports and rodeo medicine, mixed martial arts, and many more. - Up-to-date coverage of nutritional supplements, eating disorders, sports and pharmacology for chronic conditions and behavioral medicine, and extreme and adventure sports.