When Chrysalis Moffat and her brother, Eddie, inherit a mansion on the coast of California, Eddie hatches a plan to fleece credulous Californians of their cash by starting the fraudulent Tibetan School of Miracles.But something else is happening. Through Chrysalis's reunion with her brother, she begins to discover her adoptive father's secret past, causing her own identity to unravel. As Chrysalis lays down the facts of her life, she gambles her identity against the contradictions, half-truths, and fables of her past, leading her ultimately to question what it is we can truly know and whether it is fate or chance that dictates our lives.
In the aftermath of a devastating plague, a fearless young heroine embarks on a dangerous and surprising journey to save her world in this brilliantly inventive dystopian thriller, told in bold and fierce language, from a remarkable literary talent.My name be Ice Cream Fifteen Star and this be the tale of how I bring the cure to all the Nighted States . . . In the ruins of a future America, fifteen-year-old Ice Cream Star and her nomadic tribe live off of the detritus of a crumbled civilization. Theirs is a world of children; before reaching the age of twenty, they all die of a mysterious disease they call Posies--a plague that has killed for generations. There is no medicine, no treatment; only the mysterious rumor of a cure.When her brother begins showing signs of the disease, Ice Cream Star sets off on a bold journey to find this cure. Led by a stranger, a captured prisoner named Pasha who becomes her devoted protector and friend, Ice Cream Star plunges into the unknown, risking her freedom and ultimately her life. Traveling hundreds of miles across treacherous, unfamiliar territory, she will experience love, heartbreak, cruelty, terror, and betrayal, fighting with her whole heart and soul to protect the only world she has ever known.Guardian First Book Award finalist Sandra Newman delivers an extraordinary post-apocalyptic literary epic as imaginative as The Passage and as linguistically ambitious as Cloud Atlas. Like Hushpuppy in The Beasts of the Southern Wild grown to adolescence in a landscape as dangerously unpredictable as that of Ready Player One, The Country of Ice Cream Star is a breathtaking work from a writer of rare and unconventional talent.
A PEOPLE Magazine Must-Read Book for Fall 2023 An Esquire Best Book of Fall 2023 A Guardian Biggest New Book of 2023 A LitHub Most Anticipated Book of 2023An imaginative, feminist, and brilliantly relevant-to-today retelling of Orwell's 1984, from the point of view of Winston Smith's lover, Julia, by critically acclaimed novelist Sandra Newman.Julia Worthing is a mechanic, working in the Fiction Department at the Ministry of Truth. It's 1984, and Britain (now called Airstrip One) has long been absorbed into the larger trans-Atlantic nation of Oceania. Oceania has been at war for as long as anyone can remember, and is ruled by an ultra-totalitarian Party, whose leader is a quasi-mythical figure called Big Brother. In short, everything about this world is as it is in Orwell's 1984.All her life, Julia has known only Oceania, and, until she meets Winston Smith, she has never imagined anything else. She is an ideal citizen: cheerfully cynical, always ready with a bribe, piously repeating every political slogan while believing in nothing. She routinely breaks the rules, but also collaborates with the regime when necessary. Everyone likes Julia.Then one day she finds herself walking toward Winston Smith in a corridor and impulsively slips him a note, setting in motion the devastating, unforgettable events of the classic story. Julia takes us on a surprising journey through Orwell's now-iconic dystopia, with twists that reveal unexpected sides not only to Julia, but to other familiar figures in the 1984 universe. This unique perspective lays bare our own world in haunting and provocative ways, just as the original did almost seventy-five years ago.
There they sit, the great tomes of classical literature, taunting you with their length and difficulty, as you ask: which books are the most important and why - and what's actually any good? Why does most writing about the classics have words like 'seminal' or 'oeuvre' in it? What does postmodernism mean? Can I get away with just reading the introduction?Now you can enjoy the classics without fear. This survival kit will guide you painlessly through the Western literary canon, century by century: from Ancient Greek drama to the modern novel, via Beowulf, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Romantic poetry, Tolstoy and Proust. There are entertaining plot summaries, unpretentious definitions of literary movements and fresh insights into authors' lives. With each work assigned ratings from 1 to 10 on Importance, Accessibility and Fun, you'll discover what's really worth bothering with and what you can safely discard without guilt.This book will make the things you've read clearer, inspire you to tackle the ones you've always meant to and make you sound far cleverer than you really are.
Explore ancient Greek civilization, its history, city-states, government, religion, arts, sciences, and warfare.A True Book: Ancient Civilizations series allows readers to experience what makes each ancient civilization distinctive and exceptional as well look at its influence on the some of the practices of the modern world. This series includes an age appropriate (grades 3-5) introduction to curriculum-relevant subjects and a robust resource section that encourages independent study.
New York, late summer, 2000. A party in a spacious Manhattan apartment, hosted by a wealthy young activist. Dozens of idealistic twenty-somethings have impassioned conversations over takeout dumplings and champagne. The evening shines with the heady optimism of a progressive new millennium. A young man, Ben, meets a young woman, Kate--and they begin to fall in love.Kate lives with her head in the clouds, so at first Ben isn't that concerned when she tells him about the recurring dream she's had since childhood. In the dream, she's transported to the past, where she lives a second life as Emilia, the mistress of a nobleman in Elizabethan England. But for Kate, the dream becomes increasingly real, to the point where it threatens to overwhelm her life. And soon she's waking from it to find the world changed--pictures on her wall she doesn't recognize, new buildings in the neighborhood that have sprung up overnight. As Kate tries to make sense of what's happening, Ben worries the woman he's fallen in love with is losing her grip on reality.Both intoxicating and thought-provoking, The Heavens is a powerful reminder of the consequences of our actions, a poignant testament to how the people we love are destined to change, and a masterful exploration of the power of dreams.
From the author of The Heavens, a dazzling, mindbending novel in which all people with a Y chromosome mysteriously disappear from the face of the earthDeep in the California woods on an evening in late August, Jane Pearson is camping with her husband Leo and their five-year-old son Benjamin. As dusk sets in, she drifts softly to sleep in a hammock strung outside the tent where Leo and Benjamin are preparing for bed. At that moment, every single person with a Y chromosome vanishes around the world, disappearing from operating theaters mid-surgery, from behind the wheels of cars, from arguments and acts of love. Children, adults, even fetuses are gone in an instant. Leo and Benjamin are gone. No one knows why, how, or where. After the Disappearance, Jane forces herself to enter a world she barely recognizes, one where women must create new ways of living while coping with devastating grief. As people come together to rebuild depopulated industries and distribute scarce resources, Jane focuses on reuniting with an old college girlfriend, Evangelyne Moreau, leader of the Commensalist Party of America, a rising political force in this new world. Meanwhile, strange video footage called "The Men" is being broadcast online showing images of the vanished men marching through barren, otherworldly landscapes. Is this just a hoax, or could it hold the key to the Disappearance?From the author of The Heavens, The Men is a gripping, beautiful, and disquieting novel of feminist utopias and impossible sacrifices that interrogates the dream of a perfect society and the conflict between individual desire and the good of the community.
In the aftermath of a devastating plague, a fearless young heroine embarks on a dangerous and surprising journey to save her world in this brilliantly inventive thriller.In the ruins of a future America, fifteen-year-old Ice Cream Star and her nomadic tribe live off the detritus of a crumbled civilization. Theirs is a world of children; before reaching the age of twenty, they all die of a strange disease they call Posies--a plague that has killed for generations. There is no medicine, no treatment; only the mysterious rumor of a cure.When her brother begins showing signs of the disease, Ice Cream Star sets off on a bold journey to find this cure. Led by a stranger, a captured prisoner named Pasha who becomes her devoted protector and friend, Ice Cream Star plunges into the unknown, risking her freedom and ultimately her life. Traveling hundreds of miles across treacherous, unfamiliar territory, she will experience love, heartbreak, cruelty, terror, and betrayal, fighting to protect the only world she has ever known.A postapocalyptic literary epic as imaginative as The Passage and as linguistically ambitious as Cloud Atlas, The Country of Ice Cream Star is a breathtaking work from a writer of rare and unconventional talent.
In the aftermath of a devastating plague, a fearless young heroine embarks on a dangerous and surprising journey to save her world in this brilliantly inventive thriller.In the ruins of a future America, fifteen-year-old Ice Cream Star and her nomadic tribe live off the detritus of a crumbled civilization. Theirs is a world of children; before reaching the age of twenty, they all die of a strange disease they call Posies--a plague that has killed for generations. There is no medicine, no treatment; only the mysterious rumor of a cure.When her brother begins showing signs of the disease, Ice Cream Star sets off on a bold journey to find this cure. Led by a stranger, a captured prisoner named Pasha who becomes her devoted protector and friend, Ice Cream Star plunges into the unknown, risking her freedom and ultimately her life. Traveling hundreds of miles across treacherous, unfamiliar territory, she will experience love, heartbreak, cruelty, terror, and betrayal, fighting to protect the only world she has ever known.A postapocalyptic literary epic as imaginative as The Passage and as linguistically ambitious as Cloud Atlas, The Country of Ice Cream Star is a breathtaking work from a writer of rare and unconventional talent.
A side-splitting tour that makes it a blast to read the Western literary canon, from the ancient Greeks to the Modernists. To many, the Great Books evoke angst: the complicated Renaissance dramas we bluffed our way through in college, the dusty Everyman's Library editions that look classy on the shelf but make us feel guilty because they've never been opened. On a mission to restore the West's great works to their rightful place (they were intended to be entertaining ), Sandra Newman has produced a reading guide like no other. Beginning with Greek and Roman literature, she takes readers through hilarious detours and captivating historical tidbits on the road to Modernism. Along the way, we find parallels between Rabelais and South Park, Jane Austen and Sex and the City, Jonathan Swift and Jon Stewart, uncovering the original humor and riskiness that propelled great authors to celebrity.Packed with pop culture gems, stories of literary hoaxes, ironic day jobs for authors, bad reviews of books that would later become classics, and more.
'What a wonderful, strange, terrifying, brilliant novel this is' Kamila Shamsie AS THE WORLD BURNS, ONLY A DREAMER CAN SAVE IT... New York, 2000. The United Nations has just planted its flag on Mars, and a Green Party senator is about to become the first female president of the United States. At a party in the almost-Utopian world, Kate and Ben fall in love. London, 1593. Kate wakes as Emilia, mistress to a nobleman and friend to a lowly court poet called Will. Afflicted by apocalyptic premonitions, she sets out to save the world. Each decision she makes as Emilia will change Kate's life with Ben forever. 'Bewitchingly complex... Astonishing' Sarah Perry, author of The Essex Serpent 'An electrifying novel of love, creativity and madness... Playful, tender and heart breaking' Guardian 'Elegiac and genuinely, unbelievably moving... By the time I got to the end of it, I wanted to go back and read the beginning... You've got to read this book' Helen Lewis, BBC Radio 4 Saturday Review
Julia is a bold feminist retelling of Nineteen Eighty-Four that goes beyond Winston Smith's story to finally reveal what life in Oceania was like for women
"a fascinating reflection on totalitarianism as refracted through Orwell's times and our own" The Guardian London, chief city of Airstrip One, the third most populous province of Oceania. It's 1984 and Julia Worthing works as a mechanic fixing the novel-writing machines in the Fiction Department at the Ministry of Truth. Under the ideology of IngSoc and the rule of the Party and its leader Big Brother, Julia is a model citizen - cheerfully cynical, believing in nothing and caring not at all about politics. She knows how to survive in a world of constant surveillance, Thought Police, Newspeak, Doublethink, child spies and the black markets of the prole neighbourhoods. She's very good at staying alive. But Julia becomes intrigued by a colleague from the Records Department - a mid-level worker of the Outer Party called Winston Smith, she comes to realise that she's losing her grip and can no longer safely navigate her world. Seventy-five years after Orwell finished writing his iconic novel, Sandra Newman has tackled the world of Big Brother in a truly convincing way, offering a dramatically different, feminist narrative that is true to and stands alongside the original. For the millions of readers who have been brought up with Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, here, finally, is a provocative, vital and utterly satisfying companion novel.
Julia is a bold feminist retelling of Nineteen Eighty-Four that goes beyond Winston Smith's story to finally reveal what life in Oceania was like for women
In 2009 it was How NOT to Write a Novel ('A hilarious, wickedly observed and deeply useful guide' Observer). In 2010 it's READ THIS NEXT - Sandra Newman and Howard Mittelmark have written the perfect book for anyone who has ever struggled to choose what to read next. But this is far more than a guide for book groups. Covering 600 books ranging from The Shock Doctrine to Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and exploring all the important issues like how to tell the difference between Naomis Wolf and Klein, whether anyone really likes Emma Bovary, what makes a really good loo book and whether it's really wrong to marry for money, READ THIS NEXT reminds you exactly why you love reading and then makes you want to go out and read lots more. And what's more, it's very, very funny.
