Synopses & Reviews
“Simply great . . . Burns is as good a writer about the South as youre going to read for a long, long time.” —
Atlanta Journal-ConstitutionA classic bestseller, Cold Sassy Tree is the story of Will Tweedy, a fourteen-year-old boy coming of age at the turn of the century in rural Georgia. His grandfather, a recent widower, inspires a whirlwind of gossip in their small town when he marries a woman half his age. Brimming with characters who are wise, unimpeachably pious, and deliciously irreverent, it is a resplendent treasure. The unfinished sequel, Leaving Cold Sassy, follows Will Tweedy into adulthood, as he grapples with the influences of the modern world on his cherished southern hometown.
Olive Ann Burns (1924-1990) was born on a farm in Banks County, Georgia. She received a degree in journalism from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and for ten years was on the Sunday magazine staff of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. She turned to writing as a respite during treatment for cancer. Her first novel, Cold Sassy Tree, made her a best-selling author at age 60.
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Everything Is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foers stunning debut, tells the story of a young Jewish American's quixotic journey into an unexpected past. Foer then turned his talent to the traumas of our recent history in his exhilarating second novel, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. This beautiful edition brings together, for the first time, two works from one of this generations most original writers.
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This beautiful edition brings together, for the first time,and#160;two works from one of this generationand#8217;s most original writers.
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The classic coming-of-age bestseller and its unfinished sequel appearing for the first time in a single edition.
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Two candid and intensely intimate books from one of the most influential Christian apologists of the twentieth century.
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"If wit and wisdom, style and scholarship are requisites to passage through the pearly gates, Mr. Lewis will be among the angels." —T
he New YorkerC.S. Lewis was an unfailingly honest and acutely perceptive observer of humanity. In Surprised by Joy, he recounts his search for joy, a spiritual journey that led him from a traditional Christian childhood in Belfast to a youthful atheism and, finally, back to a confident Christianity. The Four Loves, a candid, wise and deeply personal book, is a reflection on the four basic kinds of human love—affection, friendship, erotic love, charity—and all of the pleasures and risks that accompany them.
C.S. Lewis (1898-1963) gained international renown for an impressive array of beloved works of both popular and scholarly literary criticism, childrens literature, fantasy literature, and numerous books on theology. Surprised by Joy and The Four Loves are among his most celebrated achievements, as are Out of the Silent Planet, The Chronicles of Narnia, and The Screwtape Letters.
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Two bestselling novels from "one of his generation's most deservedly acclaimed authors." (Chicago Tribune)
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“Tim OBrien is the best American writer of his generation.” —
San Francisco ExaminerWith more than two million copies in print, The Things They Carried is a classic work of American literature that has been changing minds and lives since it burst onto the literary scene. It is a groundbreaking meditation on war, memory, imagination, and the redemptive power of storytelling. In the Lake of the Woods is an unforgettable novel of love and mystery. When long-hidden secrets about his past come to light, John Wade—a Vietnam veteran and recent candidate for the U.S. Senate—retreats with his wife to a cabin in northern Minnesota. She mysteriously vanishes and several explanations, all of them disturbing, rise to the surface.
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Two classic works from one of America's superlative writers.
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“Like all writers of original genius, Miss McCullers convinces us that we have missed something which was plainly to be seen in the real world . . . She is a master of peculiar perception and an incomparable storyteller.” —V. S. Pritchett
Upon publication of The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, Carson McCullers, all of twenty-three, became a literary sensation. With its compassionate glimpses into its characters inner lives, her story gives voice to the rejected, the forgotten, and the mistreated. In The Member of the Wedding, McCullers tells the story of the inimitable twelve-year-old Frankie, who is utterly, hopelessly bored with life until she hears about her older brothers upcoming marriage. It is a coming-of-age story that showcases McCullers at her most sensitive and enduring best.
About the Author
Carson McCullers (1917-1967) was the author of numerous works of fiction and nonfiction, including The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, The Member of the Wedding, Reflections in a Golden Eye, and Clock Without Hands. Born in Columbus, Georgia, on February 19, 1917, she became a promising pianist and enrolled in the Juilliard School of Music in New York when she was seventeen, but lacking money for tuition, she never attended classes. Instead she studied writing at Columbia University, which ultimately led to The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, the novel that made her an overnight literary sensation. On September 29, 1967, at age fifty, she died in Nyack, New York, where she is buried.