The Truth And Other Stories

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The Truth and Other Stories

Author : Stanislaw Lem
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262366657
Total Pages : 341 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (623 download)

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Book Synopsis The Truth and Other Stories by : Stanislaw Lem

Download or read book The Truth and Other Stories written by Stanislaw Lem and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2021-09-14 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Twelve stories by science fiction master Stanisław Lem, nine of them never before published in English. Of these twelve short stories by science fiction master Stanisław Lem, only three have previously appeared in English, making this the first "new" book of fiction by Lem since the late 1980s. The stories display the full range of Lem's intense curiosity about scientific ideas as well as his sardonic approach to human nature, presenting as multifarious a collection of mad scientists as any reader could wish for. Many of these stories feature artificial intelligences or artificial life forms, long a Lem preoccupation; some feature quite insane theories of cosmology or evolution. All are thought provoking and scathingly funny. Written from 1956 to 1993, the stories are arranged in chronological order. In the title story, "The Truth," a scientist in an insane asylum theorizes that the sun is alive; "The Journal" appears to be an account by an omnipotent being describing the creation of infinite universes--until, in a classic Lem twist, it turns out to be no such thing; in "An Enigma," beings debate whether offspring can be created without advanced degrees and design templates. Other stories feature a computer that can predict the future by 137 seconds, matter-destroying spores, a hunt in which the prey is a robot, and an electronic brain eager to go on the lam. These stories are peak Lem, exploring ideas and themes that resonate throughout his writing.

Sojourner's Truth & Other Stories

Author : Lee Maracle
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 156 pages
Book Rating : 4.F/5 ( download)

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Book Synopsis Sojourner's Truth & Other Stories by : Lee Maracle

Download or read book Sojourner's Truth & Other Stories written by Lee Maracle and published by . This book was released on 1990 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of short stories about unresolved human dilemmaas.

The Truth about Stories

Author : Thomas King
Publisher : House of Anansi
ISBN 13 : 0887846963
Total Pages : 184 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (878 download)

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Book Synopsis The Truth about Stories by : Thomas King

Download or read book The Truth about Stories written by Thomas King and published by House of Anansi. This book was released on 2003 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 2003 Trillium Book Award "Stories are wondrous things," award-winning author and scholar Thomas King declares in his 2003 CBC Massey Lectures. "And they are dangerous." Beginning with a traditional Native oral story, King weaves his way through literature and history, religion and politics, popular culture and social protest, gracefully elucidating North America's relationship with its Native peoples. Native culture has deep ties to storytelling, and yet no other North American culture has been the subject of more erroneous stories. The Indian of fact, as King says, bears little resemblance to the literary Indian, the dying Indian, the construct so powerfully and often destructively projected by White North America. With keen perception and wit, King illustrates that stories are the key to, and only hope for, human understanding. He compels us to listen well.

The Rivals and Other Stories

Author : Jonah Rosenfeld
Publisher : Syracuse University Press
ISBN 13 : 0815654936
Total Pages : 255 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (156 download)

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Book Synopsis The Rivals and Other Stories by : Jonah Rosenfeld

Download or read book The Rivals and Other Stories written by Jonah Rosenfeld and published by Syracuse University Press. This book was released on 2020-03-31 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A major literary figure and frequent contributor to the Yiddish-language newspaper Forverts from the 1920s to the mid-1930s, Jonah Rosenfeld was recognized during and after his lifetime as an explorer of human psychology. His work foregrounds loneliness, social anxiety, and people’s frustrated longing for meaningful relationships—themes just as relevant to today’s Western society as they were during his era. The Rivals and Other Stories introduces nineteen of Rosenfeld’s short stories to an English-reading audience for the first time. Unlike much of Yiddish literature that offers a sentimentalized view of the tight knit communities of early twentieth-century Jewish life, Rosenfeld’s stories portray an entirely different view of pre-war Jewish families. His stories are urban, domestic dramas that probe the often painful disjunctions between men and women, parents and children, rich and poor, Jews and Gentiles, self and society. They explore eroticism and family dysfunction in narratives that were often shocking to readers at the time they were published. Following the Modernist tradition, Rosenfeld rejected many established norms, such as religion and the assumption of absolute truth. Rather, his work is rooted in psychological realism, portraying the inner lives of alienated individuals who struggle to construct a world in which they can live. These deeply moving, empathetic stories provide a counterbalance to the prevailing idealized portrait of shtetl life and enrich our understanding of Yiddish literature.

The Other Story

Author : Tatiana de Rosnay
Publisher : St. Martin's Press
ISBN 13 : 1466843535
Total Pages : 320 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (668 download)

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Book Synopsis The Other Story by : Tatiana de Rosnay

Download or read book The Other Story written by Tatiana de Rosnay and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2014-04-15 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times best seller! From the New York Times and international best-selling author Tatiana de Rosnay comes The Other Story, "[a] brilliant pager-turner"(BookPage), layered and beautifully written, that is a reflection on identity, the process of being a writer and the repercussions of generations-old decisions as they echo into the present and shape the future. Vacationing at a luxurious Tuscan island resort, Nicolas Duhamel is hopeful that the ghosts of his past have finally been put to rest... Now a bestselling author, when he was twenty-four years old, he stumbled upon a troubling secret about his family-a secret that was carefully concealed. In shock, Nicolas embarked on a journey to uncover the truth that took him from the Basque coast to St. Petersburg-but the answers wouldn't come easily. In the process of digging into his past, something else happened. Nicolas began writing a novel that was met with phenomenal success, skyrocketing him to literary fame whether he was ready for it or not - and convincing him that he had put his family's history firmly behind him. But now, years later, Nicolas must reexamine everything he thought he knew, as he learns that, however deeply buried, the secrets of the past always find a way out. "The tension of Nicholas's unsustainable half-truths and the gradual parceling out of his father's secrets will keep readers in de Rosnay's thrall, hoping redemption will come. Readers in real life should anticipate de Rosnay's latest with all the fervor Nicholas's fans show in awaiting his."-Shelf Awareness "de Rosnay's fans...will not be disappointed."-Library Journal

The Hidden Girl and Other Stories

Author : Ken Liu
Publisher : Gallery / Saga Press
ISBN 13 : 1982134038
Total Pages : 432 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (821 download)

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Book Synopsis The Hidden Girl and Other Stories by : Ken Liu

Download or read book The Hidden Girl and Other Stories written by Ken Liu and published by Gallery / Saga Press. This book was released on 2020-02-25 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From award-winning author Ken Liu comes his much anticipated second volume of short stories. Ken Liu is one of the most lauded short story writers of our time. This collection includes a selection of his science fiction and fantasy stories from the last five years—sixteen of his best—plus a new novelette. In addition to these seventeen selections, The Hidden Girl and Other Stories also features an excerpt from book three in the Dandelion Dynasty series, The Veiled Throne.

Animal Truth and Other Stories

Author : Sharona Muir
Publisher : University of New Orleans Press
ISBN 13 : 1608012395
Total Pages : 140 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (8 download)

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Book Synopsis Animal Truth and Other Stories by : Sharona Muir

Download or read book Animal Truth and Other Stories written by Sharona Muir and published by University of New Orleans Press. This book was released on 2022-11-22 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Sharona Muir’s unique eco-fabulist tales, fantastic animals and real science lead people through adventure and crisis to metamorphoses of the heart, and surprising truths about being human in the living system. In “Menu: Extinction”, an artist obsessed with the mass extinction of species creates a “banquet” installation in which a mermaid is served as a dish, while the banquet’s imaginary, satanic chef stalks his wife. In “Animal Truth,” a fiercely independent woman researching the genome of a mysterious fish discovers that her lover-collaborator is her own son, given away at birth, and wrestles with the meanings of truth and motherhood. A time travelling billionaire escaping the complexities of contemporary life, in “The Bath of Venus,” has his heart broken by a beautiful creature in Earth’s remote past. Each of these stories spins into gold the prickling straw of contemporary anxieties about our continued life on the planet. By turns playful, terrifying, haunting, and sensuous, the stories in this collection inspire wonder at the interwoven lives of human and nonhuman beings. They are both madly inventive and scientifically literate, and (to cite Anthony Doerr’s praise for her work) “absolutely original.”

Orange World and Other Stories

Author : Karen Russell
Publisher : Vintage
ISBN 13 : 0525656146
Total Pages : 288 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (256 download)

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Book Synopsis Orange World and Other Stories by : Karen Russell

Download or read book Orange World and Other Stories written by Karen Russell and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2019-05-14 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the Pulitzer Finalist and universally beloved author of the New York Times best sellers Swamplandia! and Vampires in the Lemon Grove, a stunning new collection of short fiction that showcases Karen Russell’s extraordinary, irresistible gifts of language and imagination. Karen Russell’s comedic genius and mesmerizing talent for creating outlandish predicaments that uncannily mirror our inner in lives is on full display in these eight exuberant, arrestingly vivid, unforgettable stories. In“Bog Girl”, a revelatory story about first love, a young man falls in love with a two thousand year old girl that he’s extracted from a mass of peat in a Northern European bog. In “The Prospectors,” two opportunistic young women fleeing the depression strike out for new territory, and find themselves fighting for their lives. In the brilliant, hilarious title story, a new mother desperate to ensure her infant’s safety strikes a diabolical deal, agreeing to breastfeed the devil in exchange for his protection. The landscape in which these stories unfold is a feral, slippery, purgatorial space, bracketed by the void—yet within it Russell captures the exquisite beauty and tenderness of ordinary life. Orange World is a miracle of storytelling from a true modern master.

Dialogues

Author : Stanislaw Lem
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262542935
Total Pages : 359 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (625 download)

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Book Synopsis Dialogues by : Stanislaw Lem

Download or read book Dialogues written by Stanislaw Lem and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2021-09-28 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first English translation of a nonfiction work by Stanisław Lem, which was "conceived under the spell of cybernetics" in 1957 and updated in 1971. In 1957, Stanisław Lem published Dialogues, a book "conceived under the spell of cybernetics," as he wrote in the preface to the second edition. Mimicking the form of Berkeley's Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous, Lem's original dialogue was an attempt to unravel the then-novel field of cybernetics. It was a testimony, Lem wrote later, to "the almost limitless cognitive optimism" he felt upon his discovery of cybernetics. This is the first English translation of Lem's Dialogues, including the text of the first edition and the later essays added to the second edition in 1971. For the second edition, Lem chose not to revise the original. Recognizing the naivete of his hopes for cybernetics, he constructed a supplement to the first dialogue, which consists of two critical essays, the first a summary of the evolution of cybernetics, the second a contribution to the cybernetic theory of the "sociopathology of governing," amending the first edition's discussion of the pathology of social regulation; and two previously published articles on related topics. From the vantage point of 1971, Lem observes that original book, begun as a search for methods "that would increase our understanding of both the human and nonhuman worlds," was in the end "an expression of the cognitive curiosity and anxiety of modern thought."

Reality and Other Stories

Author : John Lanchester
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN 13 : 0393540928
Total Pages : 192 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (935 download)

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Book Synopsis Reality and Other Stories by : John Lanchester

Download or read book Reality and Other Stories written by John Lanchester and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2021-03-09 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Kirkus Reviews Best Short Fiction of 2021 Selection Ghost stories for the digital age by the Booker Prize–longlisted author of The Wall. In 2017, inspired in part by Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw, the acclaimed English novelist John Lanchester published a ghost story in The New Yorker. "Signal," an eerie story of contemporary life and the perils of technology, was a sensation among readers—and since then Lanchester has written several more. Reality and Other Stories gathers the best of these, taking readers to an uncanny world familiar to fans of The Twilight Zone or Black Mirror. Household gizmos with a mind of their own. Mysterious cell-phone calls from unknown numbers. Reality TV shows and the creeping suspicion that none of this is real… Reality and Other Stories is a book of disquiet that captures the severe disconnection and distraction of our time.

The Truth and Other Hidden Things

Author : Lea Geller
Publisher : Lake Union Publishing
ISBN 13 : 9781542026536
Total Pages : 312 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (265 download)

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Book Synopsis The Truth and Other Hidden Things by : Lea Geller

Download or read book The Truth and Other Hidden Things written by Lea Geller and published by Lake Union Publishing. This book was released on 2021-04-06 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A freshly funny and heartfelt novel about one woman's secret life, the stories she tells, and the thrill and notoriety of being noticed. On the same day Bells Walker learns that her IUD has failed, her husband, Harry, is denied tenure at his Manhattan university. So Bells, Harry, their two adolescent children, and her baby bump move to New York's Hudson Valley, where Harry has landed a job at Dutchess College in the town of Pigkill. When the farm-to-table utopia Bells envisioned is anything but, she turns to the blogosphere. Under the pen name the County Dutchess, she anonymously dishes about life in Pigkill, detailing the activities of hypercompetitive parents and kombucha-drinking hipsters. Suddenly, Bells has a place to say all the things she's been secretly thinking about being a wife and mother. As Bells turns the focus of her blog on her new neighbors, her readership continues to grow, but her scandalous posts hit closer to home: she puts Harry's new job in jeopardy, derails her children's lives, and risks the one real friendship she's built. When Bells uncovers scandals right under her nose, the Dutchess goes viral, and soon everyone is asking, Who is the County Dutchess? Now Bells has to ask herself if it's worth losing the people closest to her to finally feel noticed by everyone else.

Peasants and Other Stories

Author : Anton Chekhov
Publisher : New York Review of Books
ISBN 13 : 9780940322141
Total Pages : 500 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (221 download)

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Book Synopsis Peasants and Other Stories by : Anton Chekhov

Download or read book Peasants and Other Stories written by Anton Chekhov and published by New York Review of Books. This book was released on 1999-09-30 with total page 500 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The ever maturing art and ever more ambitious imaginative reach of Anton Chekhov, one of the world's greatest masters of the short story, led him in his last years to an increasingly profound exploration of the troubled depths of Russian society and life. This powerful and revealing selection from Chekhov's final works, made by the legendary American critic Edmund Wilson, offers stories of novelistic richness and complexity, published in the only formatp edition to present them in chronological order. Table of Contents A Woman's Kingdom Three Years The Murder My Life Peasants The New Villa In the Ravine The Bishop Betrothed

Fado and Other Stories

Author : Katherine Vaz
Publisher : University of Pittsburgh Press
ISBN 13 : 0822978849
Total Pages : 184 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (229 download)

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Book Synopsis Fado and Other Stories by : Katherine Vaz

Download or read book Fado and Other Stories written by Katherine Vaz and published by University of Pittsburgh Press. This book was released on 1997-10-15 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 1997 Drue Heinz Literature Prize This collection is filled with narrative and character grounded in the meaning and value the earth gives to human existence. In one story, a woman sleeps with the village priest, trying to gain back the land the church took from her family; in another, relatives in the Azores fight over a plot of land owned by their expatriate American cousin. Even apparently small images are cast in terms of the earth: Milton, one narrator explains, has made apples the object of a misunderstanding by naming them as Eden’s fruit: “In the Bible, no fruit is named in the Garden of Eden - and to this day apples are misunderstood. They were trying to tempt people not into sin but into listening to the earth more closely. . . . their white meal runs wet with the knowledge of the language of the land, but people do not listen.” Vaz’s beautiful, intensely conscious language often delicately slips her stories into the realm of the fado, the Portuguese song about fate and longing. “Listen for the nightingale that presses its breast against the thorns of the rose,” on character sings, “that the song might be more beautiful.” Such a verse might describe Vaz’s own motive behind her willingness to confront her subject’s ambiguities and her characters’ conflicts - the simultaneous joy and sorrow of some of life’s discoveries, the pain sometimes hidden within passion and pleasure.

The Truth

Author : Jeffry W. Johnston
Publisher : Sourcebooks, Inc.
ISBN 13 : 1492623210
Total Pages : 256 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (926 download)

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Book Synopsis The Truth by : Jeffry W. Johnston

Download or read book The Truth written by Jeffry W. Johnston and published by Sourcebooks, Inc.. This book was released on 2016-02-02 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "I tied you up because I need you to listen," Derek says. "Focus." "Please... W-what do you want from me?" "The truth," he says. "About what happened the night my brother died." He reaches for my left hand. "If I think you're lying..." With his other hand, he flourishes a pair of flower cutters. Curved. Sharp. And he smiles. When Chris wakes up in a dark basement tied to a chair, he knows that he's trapped-and why. Eight nights ago a burglar broke into Chris' home. Eight nights ago Chris did what he had to do to protect his family. And eight nights ago a 13-year-old runaway bled to death on his kitchen floor. Now Derek wants the truth about what happened that night. He wants proof his little brother didn't deserve to die. For every lie Chris tells, he will lose a finger. But telling the truth is far more dangerous... A riveting, edge-of-your-seat thriller from Edgar Award-nominated author Jeffry W. Johnston that explores the gray area between what is right and what we'll do to protect the people we love.

The Truth about Alicia and Other Stories

Author : Ana Consuelo Matiella
Publisher : University of Arizona Press
ISBN 13 : 9780816521616
Total Pages : 156 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (216 download)

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Book Synopsis The Truth about Alicia and Other Stories by : Ana Consuelo Matiella

Download or read book The Truth about Alicia and Other Stories written by Ana Consuelo Matiella and published by University of Arizona Press. This book was released on 2002-01-01 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The truth about Alicia was that she wasnÕt that stable to begin with. So when she did what she did, no one was very surprised. Still it was shocking, the way she followed them from the hardware store to the woman's house, the way she broke the sliding glass door with the tire jack, the way she found them in bed. It was more than she could take, her being seven months pregnant and all. It only took two shots. . . . " Alicia is not the only woman with problems. In these stories about contemporary and traditional Latinas, Ana Consuelo Matiella uses sensitivity and wit to address issues faced by women of color and women everywhereÑissues largely having to do with love: between men and women, mothers and daughters, women and friends. In engaging stories about family myths, gossip, and lies, comadres converse over afternoon cafŽ con leche. "I'm sure that I was the only wife whose husband was teaching their daughter to do Cheech Marin imitations," remarks one of Matiella's characters. Another sings the praises of the chocolate milkshake diet: "ThatÕs one advantage of living on the border. You get to try all the latest gringo inventions as soon as they hit the streets." Through encounters with angels, conversations with dogs, and relationships with men overly concerned with the dimensions of their manhood, Matiella offers a new exploration of the human conditionÑone showing us that if we cannot laugh at life, no matter how tragic the circumstances, we are surely doomed. With humor and insight that come only through close observation of her fellow human beings, this gifted writer brings new twists to familiar scenes. The Truth about Alicia and Other Stories is an authentic portrayal of the world of contemporary Chicanas that will delight everyone who enters it.

The Truth and Other Lies

Author : Sascha Arango
Publisher : Text Publishing
ISBN 13 : 192509569X
Total Pages : 240 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (25 download)

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Book Synopsis The Truth and Other Lies by : Sascha Arango

Download or read book The Truth and Other Lies written by Sascha Arango and published by Text Publishing. This book was released on 2015-04-22 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Famous bestselling author, loving husband, generous friend - Henry Hayden is a pleasant person to have around. Or so it seems. And when his mistress, who is also his editor, becomes pregnant, his carefully constructed life threatens to fall apart. So Henry works out an ingenious plan. Craftily and cold-bloodedly, he intertwines lies and truths and all the shades of grey in-between. But when he tries to get rid of his mistress, Henry makes a terrible mistake. Not only are the police soon after him, but his past, which he has painstakingly kept under the carpet, also threatens to catch up with him with deadly consequences. Sascha Arango was born in Berlin in 1959 and is one of Germany's most prominent screenplay writers. He has also authored audio plays and stage plays and has been awarded several prizes, including the Grimme Prize twice. The Truth and Other Lies is his first novel. 'One thing must be made absolutely clear: The Truth and Other Lies is, until further notice, this year's best achievement on the German crime book scene.' Die Welt ‘Riddled with delicious ironies, misdirection and plenty of black humour...This is a stunning debut and readers will look forward to more from this talented author.’ BookMooch ‘Sometimes it's a sheer pleasure to read such a clever book...a dark, funny, captivating read.’ Magnet ‘A highly entertaining thriller...Wry humour punctuates this insightful look at a soulless man.’ STARRED Review, Publishers Weekly ‘Noir fiction of the most beautiful kind, even in its most evil moments maintaining a certain tenderness.' Spiegel Online ‘This is one wicked tale...German screenwriter Arango’s first novel is superior pulp, with schemers all around and plenty to say about fame, identity, and mortality.’ Kirkus ‘A dark, funny, captivating read. A villain in the vein of Patricia Highsmith's Tom Ripley, a book you won't soon forget.’ Sydney Morning Herald 'A belting good read.’ Stillnotfussed ‘If you like crime fiction that messes with your head like a brain teaser or a game of chess, you will enjoy the many plot twists and turns in this literary cat's cradle.’ Booktopia Buzz ‘A marvellous book, the kind that never lets you get comfortable enough to let you think you know what’s happening.’ Readings ‘Ridiculously funny and seriously wicked...one of those books you zip through rapidly, suddenly realising, blearily, it’s now well into the wee hours.’ New Daily ‘Lies, deception, complexities, mysterious deaths and a dash of black humour and elegant wit. A highly captivating read.’ Nightlife with Tony Delroy ‘There's nothing tired or predictable about this blackly comic crime thriller...there's an openness, bewilderment and strange honesty to Arango's mendacious anti-hero that makes him easy to empathise with, if not admire.’ Weekly Review 'Arango is too skilled a writer to allow the farcical elements to take over. This is slick, controlled writing, witty and entertaining, light as air but with a dark heart.’ Stuff NZ ‘It’s a tricky twisting plot and The Truth And Other Lies is as smart and captivating as its awful protagonist...Henry is an awfully funny, funnily awful sociopath for our time.’ Australian Women’s Weekly

Virgin and Other Stories

Author : April Ayers Lawson
Publisher : Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN 13 : 0865478708
Total Pages : 192 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (654 download)

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Book Synopsis Virgin and Other Stories by : April Ayers Lawson

Download or read book Virgin and Other Stories written by April Ayers Lawson and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2016-11-01 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A confident and mesmerizing fiction debut, from the winner of the Plimpton Prize Set in the South, at the crossroads of a world that is both secular and devoutly Christian, April Ayers Lawson's stories evoke the inner lives of young women and men navigating sexual, emotional, and spiritual awakenings. In "The Negative Effects of Homeschooling," Conner, sixteen, accompanies his grieving mother to the funeral of her best friend, Charlene, a woman who was once a man. In "The Way You Must Play Always," Gretchen, who looks young even for thirteen, heads into her weekly piano lesson in nervous anticipation of her next illicit meeting with her teacher's brother, Wesley. Thin and sickly, wasting from a brain tumor, Wesley spends his days watching pornography and smoking pot, and yet Gretchen can only interpret his advances as the first budding of love. And in the title story, Jake grapples with the growing chasm between him and his wife, Sheila, who was still a virgin when they wed. At a cocktail party thrown by a wealthy donor to his hospital, he ponders the intertwining imperatives of marriage--sex and love, violation and trust, spirituality and desire--even as he finds himself succumbing to the temptations of his host. Self-assured and sensual, Virgin and Other Stories is the first work of a young writer of unusual mastery.