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Interviews | November 19, 2009

Dave: IMG Finding John Irving: The Powells.com Interview



johnirving[Editor's note: The following is a reprint of our 2005 interview with John Irving, whose new novel, Last Night in Twisted River, has just come out... Continue »
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3 Burnside Literature- A to Z

More copies of this ISBN:

Other titles in the Vintage Contemporaries series:

  1. A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You: Stories
  2. A Brief History of the Flood
  3. A Closed Eye
  4. A Cure for Dreams
  5. A Far Country
  6. A Handbook to Luck
  7. A Lesson Before Dying
  8. A Movie...and a Book
  9. A Piece of My Heart
  10. A Special Providence
  11. A Stranger in This World: Stories
  12. A Thing (or Two) about Curtis and Camilla
  13. Abandon
  14. All I Could Get
  15. American Psycho
  16. Anagrams
  17. Angel Rock
  18. Another Green World
  19. Asa, as I Knew Him
  20. Ash Wednesday
  21. Atlas of Unknowns
  22. Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse
  23. Babylon and Other Stories
  24. Babylon Rolling
  25. Back in the World: Stories
  26. Bad Behavior
  27. Bailey's Cafe
  28. Bicycle Days
  29. Big Bad Love: Stories
  30. Birds of America: Stories
  31. Black Tickets ((Rev)79 Edition)
  32. Boy Who Couldn't Sleep and Never Had to
  33. Breaking and entering
  34. Bridge of Sighs
  35. Brief Lives
  36. Bright Lights, Big City
  37. Brightness Falls
  38. Brother, I'm Dying
  39. Buffalo Soldiers
  40. Burning House
  41. Casa En Mango Street (House on Mango Street)
  42. Cathedral
  43. Catherine Carmier
  44. Chasing Windmills
  45. Checkpoint
  46. Chilly Scenes of Winter
  47. Claire Marvel
  48. Company
  49. Dangerous Laughter: Thirteen Stories
  50. Day
  51. Day of the Bees
  52. December
  53. Decreation: Poetry, Essays, Opera
  54. Delcorso's Gallery
  55. Dirty Work
  56. Distortions
  57. Dogwalker: Stories
  58. Don't Cry
  59. Dr. Haggard's Disease
  60. East of the Mountains
  61. East of the Mountains
  62. Edgewater Angels
  63. Edwin Mullhouse: The Life and Death of an American Writer, 1943-1954, by Jeffrey Cartwright: A Novel
  64. Empire Falls (HBO Tie-In)
  65. Enchanted Night
  66. Et Tu, Babe
  67. Evening
  68. Falling in Place (80 Edition)
  69. Father's Day
  70. Fidel's Last Days
  71. Fires: Essays, Poems, Stories
  72. Fireworks
  73. Five Gates of Hell
  74. Fraud
  75. Friend of My Youth
  76. Gallatin Canyon
  77. Ghost
  78. Glamorama
  79. God's Fool
  80. Goodnight, Nebraska
  81. Gorilla, My Love
  82. Great Neck
  83. Happy All the Time
  84. Henry of Atlantic City
  85. Home Cooking: A Writer in the Kitchen
  86. Honeymoon: And Other Stories
  87. House of Sand and Fog
  88. House on Mango Street
  89. How It Ended: New and Collected Stories
  90. How to Breathe Underwater: Stories
  91. In a Country of Mothers
  92. In Lucia's Eyes
  93. In My Father's House
  94. In the Cut
  95. In the Driver's Seat
  96. In the Fall
  97. In Times of Siege
  98. Indelible Acts
  99. Jack
  100. Jamesland
  101. Jernigan
  102. Keep the Change
  103. Kentucky Straight: Stories
  104. King Bongo: A Novel of Havana
  105. Krik? Krak!
  106. La Casa En Mango Street
  107. Lark and Termite
  108. Last of Menu Girls - With New Introduction ((Rev)04 Edition)
  109. Latecomers
  110. Leaving Home
  111. Lewis Percy
  112. Like Life: Stories
  113. Like You'd Understand, Anyway
  114. Little America
  115. Love Always
  116. Love Among the Ruins
  117. Love in the Present Tense
  118. Lunar Park
  119. Lust and Other Stories
  120. Lying Awake
  121. Mama Day
  122. Matrimony
  123. Meditations from a Movable Chair: Essays
  124. Meditations in Green
  125. Memoirs of a Geisha
  126. Mile Zero
  127. Monkeys
  128. Mortimer of the Maghreb: Stories
  129. Mozart and Leadbelly (05 Edition)
  130. My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist
  131. Netherland
  132. New England White
  133. Ninety-Two in the Shade
  134. Nobody's Angel
  135. Nothing But Blue Skies
  136. Nothing Lost
  137. Of Love and Dust
  138. Off Keck Road: A Novella
  139. Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All
  140. One To Count Cadence
  141. Our Lady of the Forest
  142. Our Story Begins: New and Selected Stories
  143. Palace Council
  144. Panama
  145. Paradise
  146. Park City: New and Selected Stories
  147. Particles and Luck
  148. Peace
  149. Philadelphia Fire
  150. Picturing Will
  151. Plainsong
  152. Players
  153. Preston Falls
  154. Prisoners of War
  155. Project X
  156. Providence
  157. Rabbit Boss
  158. Ransom
  159. Ratner's Star
  160. Reservation Road
  161. Reservation Road
  162. Revolutionary Road (Movie Tie-In Edition)
  163. Rocket City
  164. Salmonella Men on Planet Porno
  165. Sam the Cat: And Other Stories
  166. Samedi the Deafness
  167. SAP Rising
  168. Scooter
  169. Secrets and Surprises
  170. Selected Stories
  171. Self-Help
  172. Short Cuts: Selected Stories
  173. Short People
  174. Snow Falling on Cedars
  175. So I Am Glad
  176. Songs without Words
  177. Spider
  178. Spinning Tropics
  179. St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves: Stories
  180. State of Grace
  181. Still Life with Husband
  182. Story of My Life
  183. Taking Care: Short Stories
  184. The Abomination
  185. The Abortionist's Daughter
  186. The Amalgamation Polka
  187. The Assassin's Song
  188. The Back Nine
  189. The Beggar Maid: Stories of Flo and Rose
  190. The Big Girls
  191. The Bird Is a Raven
  192. The Brief History of the Dead
  193. The Cadence of Grass
  194. The Cage Keeper: And Other Stories
  195. The Chosen Place, the Timeless People
  196. The Clearing
  197. The Clearing
  198. The Closed Circle
  199. The Commitments
  200. The Commoner
  201. The Communist's Daughter
  202. The Country Ahead of Us, The Country Behind: Stories
  203. The Dead Fish Museum: Stories
  204. The Dive from Clausen's Pier
  205. The Double Bind
  206. The Emperor of Ocean Park: A Novel
  207. The Emperor's Children
  208. The End of California
  209. The Fan Man
  210. The Favorite Game
  211. The Feast of Love
  212. The Feast of Love (Mti)
  213. The Gone-Away World
  214. The Good Life
  215. The Great Divorce
  216. The Grotesque
  217. The Half-Life of Happiness
  218. The House of Sleep
  219. The House on Mango Street
  220. The Hundred Brothers
  221. The Joy Luck Club
  222. The King in the Tree
  223. The King Is Dead
  224. The Last Good Kiss
  225. The Laughing Sutra
  226. The Lay of the Land
  227. The Legal Limit
  228. The Lost City
  229. The Lost Father
  230. The Mezzanine
  231. The Moons of Jupiter
  232. The Names
  233. The Other
  234. The Outside World
  235. The Practical Heart
  236. The Progress of Love
  237. The Queen's Gambit
  238. The Rain Before It Falls
  239. The Revolution of Little Girls
  240. The Rotters' Club
  241. The Sabotage Cafe
  242. The Salt Eaters
  243. The Senator's Wife
  244. The Soul Thief
  245. The Sporting Club
  246. The Tattoo Artist
  247. The Theory of Light and Matter
  248. The Translation of Dr. Apelles: A Love Story
  249. The Ultimate Good Luck
  250. The Uses of Enchantment
  251. The Varieties of Romantic Experience
  252. The View from the Seventh Layer
  253. The Voyage
  254. The Way Through Doors
  255. The Whore's Child: And Other Stories
  256. The Willow Field
  257. The Winemaker's Daughter
  258. The Wrong Case
  259. Things That Fall from the Sky
  260. Through the Ivory Gate
  261. Tietam Brown
  262. To My Dearest Friends
  263. To Skin a Cat
  264. Traffic and Laughter: Ted Mooney
  265. Trans-Sister Radio
  266. Trauma
  267. Trespass (Vintage)
  268. Trouble: Stories
  269. Typical American
  270. Undiscovered Gyrl
  271. Veronica
  272. Visible Spirits
  273. Wetware
  274. What Was Mine: & Other Stories
  275. When the World Was Steady
  276. Where I'm Calling from: New and Selected Stories
  277. Whores on the Hill
  278. Wildlife
  279. Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?: Stories
  280. Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories: And Other Stories
  281. You Don't Love Me Yet
  282. Young Hearts Crying
  283. Zoology
  284. Zoot-Suit Murders

Unaccustomed Earth (Vintage Contemporaries)

by Jhumpa Lahiri

Unaccustomed Earth (Vintage Contemporaries) Cover

Staff Pick

Unaccustomed Earth is in many ways a deeply and authentically sad book. I would not advise reading the stories too quickly; they will each haunt you for days afterward (and, unusually in a collection like this, they are all equally strong). But Lahiri's prose is worth it; her work is masterful, confident, and timeless, and this gorgeously written collection of stories is her strongest fiction yet.
Recommended by Jill Owens, Powells.com

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

Knopf Canada is proud to welcome this bestselling, Pulitzer Prize--winning author with eight dazzling stories that take us from Cambridge and Seattle to India and Thailand as they explore the secrets at the heart of family life.

In the stunning title story, Ruma, a young mother in a new city, is visited by her father who carefully tends her garden-where she later unearths evidence of a love affair he is keeping to himself. In A Choice of Accommodations, a couple's romantic getaway weekend takes a dark turn at a party that lasts deep into the night. In Only Goodness, a woman eager to give her younger brother the perfect childhood she never had is overwhelmed by guilt, anguish and anger when his alcoholism threatens her family. And in Hema and Kaushik, a trio of linked stories-a luminous, intensely compelling elegy of life, death, love and fate-we follow the lives of a girl and boy who, one fateful winter, share a house in Massachusetts. They travel from innocence to experience on separate, sometimes painful paths, until destiny brings them together again years later in Rome.

Unaccustomed Earth is rich with the author's signature gifts: exquisite prose, emotional wisdom and subtle renderings of the most intricate workings of the heart and mind. It is the work of a writer at the peak of her powers.

Synopsis:

In this collection from a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, eight dazzling stories take readers from Cambridge and Seattle to India and Thailand as each explores the secrets at the heart of family life.

Synopsis:

These eight stories by beloved and bestselling author Jhumpa Lahiri take us from Cambridge and Seattle to India and Thailand, as they explore the secrets at the heart of family life. Here they enter the worlds of sisters and brothers, fathers and mothers, daughters and sons, friends and lovers. Rich with the signature gifts that have established Jhumpa Lahiri as one of our most essential writers, Unaccustomed Earth exquisitely renders the most intricate workings of the heart and mind.

What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating based on 2 comments:
mandylea6, October 17, 2009 (view all comments by mandylea6)
Truly beautiful and devastating. Jhumpa Lahiri's writing effects my heart like few authors are able to.
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Chris Horne, April 20, 2009 (view all comments by Chris Horne)
Finishing this collection of carefully wrought and longish short stories was bittersweet. Lahari is a master of character study, and it's difficult to believe she's still a young woman. Her descriptions of her multigenerational, mostly Bengali immigrant, characters felt intimate and usually sympathetic. The details may be Indian, but the emotions are universal. I can't think of any writer today who can so closely render the complicated interactions of adults and their offspring.

Two things are remarkable about these stories. One is the way she moves around from one point of view to another quite easily so that we see a situation from the standpoints of several characters. Lahiri switches smoothly in and out of various perspectives until she has rendered a little gem of a tale.

The second remarkable characteristic is the way she ends a story. It's not the classic O Henry ending where there's a twist that catches you by surprise and may not make sense entirely but what I think of now as a Lahiri ending, a devastating insight that takes your breath away. There's not an unsatisfying conclusion in any of the eight stories that make up this collection.
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Product Details

ISBN:
9780307278258
Author:
Lahiri, Jhumpa
Publisher:
Vintage Books USA
Author:
Lahiri, Jhumpa
Subject:
Short Stories (single author)
Subject:
Short stories
Subject:
Bengali Americans
Edition Description:
Paperback
Series:
Vintage Contemporaries
Publication Date:
April 2009
Binding:
Paperback
Language:
English
Pages:
352
Dimensions:
7.92x5.30x.78 in. .56 lbs.

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