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?Everything you could want in a story is here: courage and cowardice, lust and devotion, sickness and health, partings and death, better and worse. Speak is a novel that calls to the reader in many voices, harnessed to one distinct and singular imagination?Louisa Hall's. Turn to page one and be amazed.??Joe Hill, New York Times bestselling author of The FiremanIn a narrative that spans geography and time, told from the perspectives of five very different characters, Speak considers what it means to be human, and what it means to be less than fully alive. A Puritan woman freshly arrived in the New World, mathematician and codebreaker Alan Turing, a computer science professor, a young girl, and a former Silicon Valley wunderkind now in prison are all attempting to communicate . . . with estranged spouses, lost friends, future readers, or a computer program that may or may not understand them. Although each speaks from a distinct place and moment in time, they all share the need to express themselves while simultaneously wondering if they will ever be heard, or understood.In dazzling and electrifying prose, Louisa Hall explores how the chasm between computer and human?shrinking rapidly with today's technological advances?echoes the gaps that exist between ordinary people.?Speak is that rarest of finds: a novel that doesn't remind me of any other book I've ever read. A complex, nuanced, and beautifully written meditation on language, immortality, the nature of memory, the ethical problems of artificial intelligence, and what it means to be human.??Emily St. John Mandel, author of Station Eleven

Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita is one of the most beloved and notorious novels of all time. And yet very few of its readers know that the subject of the novel was inspired by a real-life case: the 1948 abduction of eleven-year-old Sally Horner.Weaving together suspenseful crime narrative, cultural and social history, and literary investigation, The Real Lolita tells Sally Horner's full story for the very first time. Drawing upon extensive investigations, legal documents, public records, and interviews with remaining relatives, Sarah Weinman uncovers how much Nabokov knew of the Sally Horner case and the efforts he took to disguise that knowledge during the process of writing and publishing Lolita.Sally Horner's story echoes the stories of countless girls and women who never had the chance to speak for themselves. By diving deeper into the publication history of Lolita and restoring Sally to her rightful place in the lore of the novel's creation, Sarah Weinman's thrilling, heartbreaking The Real Lolita casts a new light on the dark inspiration for a modern classic.

?A painful truth of family life: the most tender emotions can change in an instant. You think your parents love you but is it you they love, or the child who is theirs?? --Joyce Carol Oates, My Life as a RatWhich should prevail: loyalty to family or loyalty to the truth? Is telling the truth ever a mistake and is lying for one's family ever justified? Can one do the right thing, but bitterly regret it? My Life as a Rat follows Violet Rue Kerrigan, a young woman who looks back upon her life in exile from her family following her testimony, at age twelve, concerning what she knew to be the racist murder of an African-American boy by her older brothers. In a succession of vividly recalled episodes Violet contemplates the circumstances of her life as the initially beloved youngest child of seven Kerrigan children who inadvertently ?informs? on her brothers, setting into motion their arrests and convictions and her own long estrangement. Arresting and poignant, My Life as a Rat traces a life of banishment from a family?banishment from parents, siblings, and the Church?that forces Violet to discover her own identity, to break the powerful spell of family, and to emerge from her long exile as a ?rat? into a transformed life.

A provocative new novel from bestselling author T.C. Boyle exploring the first scientific and recreational forays into LSD and its mind-altering possibilitiesIn this stirring and insightful novel, T.C. Boyle takes us back to the 1960s and to the early days of a drug whose effects have reverberated widely throughout our culture: LSD.In 1943, LSD is synthesized in Basel. Two decades later, a coterie of grad students at Harvard is gradually drawn into the inner circle of renowned psychologist and psychedelic drug enthusiast Timothy Leary. Fitzhugh Loney, a psychology Ph.D. student, and his wife, Joanie, become entranced by the drug's possibilities such that their ?research? becomes less a matter of clinical trials and academic papers and instead turns into a freewheeling exploration of mind expansion, group dynamics, and communal living. With his trademark humor and pathos, Boyle moves us from the Loneys' initiation at one of Leary's parties through his notorious summer seminars in Zihuatanejo to the Loneys' eventual expulsion from Harvard and their introduction to a communal arrangement of thirty devotees?students, wives, and children?living together in a sixty-four-room mansion and committing themselves to all kinds of experimentation and questioning.Is LSD a belief system? Does it allow you to see God? Can the Loneys' marriage?or any marriage, for that matter?survive the chaotic and sometimes orgiastic use of psychedelic drugs? Wry, witty, and wise, Outside Looking In explores an ideal subject for this American master and highlights Boyle's acrobatic prose, detailed plots, and big ideas. It's an utterly engaging and occasionally trippy look at the nature of reality, identity, and consciousness as well as our seemingly infinite capacities for creativity, reinvention, and self-discovery.

Finally returned to print in a beautiful paperback edition, a haunting gothic tale of a nineteenth-century immigrant family of confidence artists?a story of morality, duplicity, and retribution that explores the depths of human manipulation and vulnerabilityThe patriarch of the Licht family, Abraham has raised a brood of talented con artists, children molded in his image, and experts in The Game, his calling and philosophy of life. Traveling from one small town to the next across the continent, from the Northeast to the frontier West, they skillfully swindle unsuspecting victims, playing on their greed, lust, pride, and small-mindedness. Despite their success, Abraham cannot banish a past that haunts him: the ghost of his ancestor Sarah Licht, a former con woman who met with a gruesome fate.As Abraham involves his family in more and more complex and impressive schemes, he finds himself caught between the specter of Sarah and the growing terrors of his present. While his carefully crafted lies and schemes begin to fracture and disintegrate before his eyes, Abraham discovers that the bond of family is as tenuous and treacherous as the tricks he perpetrates upon unsuspecting strangers.

In a tiny shack in the largest township in South Africa, Nombeko Mayeki is born. Put to work at five years old and orphaned at ten, she quickly learns that the world expects nothing more from her than to die young. But Nombeko has grander plans. She learns to read and write, and at just fifteen, using her cunning and fearlessness, she makes it out of Soweto with millions of smuggled diamonds in her possession. Then things take a turn for the worse. . . . Nombeko's life ends up hopelessly intertwined with the lives of Swedish twins intent on bringing down the Swedish monarchy. In this wild romp, Jonasson tackles issues ranging from the pervasiveness of racism to the dangers of absolute power. In the satirical voice that has earned him legions of fans the world over, he gives us another rollicking tale of how even the smallest of decisions can have global consequences.

A brilliant new work that returns Richard Ford to the celebrated fictional landscape that sealed his reputation as an American master: the world of Frank BascombeIn his trio of critically acclaimed, bestselling novels?The Sportswriter, the Pulitzer Prize and PEN/ Faulkner-winning Independence Day, and The Lay of the Land?Richard Ford, in essence, illuminated the zeitgeist of an entire generation, through the divinings and wit of his now-famous literary chronicler, Frank Bascombe, who is certainly one of the most indelible, provocative, and anticipated characters in modern American literature.Here, in Let Me Be Frank With You, Ford returns with four deftly linked stories narrated by the iconic Bascombe. Now sixty-eight, and again ensconced in the well-defended New Jersey suburb of Haddam, Bascombe has thrived?seemingly if not utterly?in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy's devastation. As in all of the Bascombe books, Ford's guiding spirit is the old comic's maxim that promises if nothing's funny, nothing's truly serious. The desolation of Sandy, which rendered houses, shorelines, and countless lives unmoored and flattened, could scarcely be more serious as the grist for fiction. Yet it is the perfect backdrop and touchstone for Ford?and Bascombe. With a flawless comedic sensibility and unblinking intelligence, these stories range over the full complement of American subjects: aging, race, loss, faith, marriage, redemption, the real-estate crash?the tumult of the world we live in.Through Bascombe?wry, profane, touching, wise, and often inappropriate?we engage in the aspirations and sorrows, longings, achievements, and failings of American life in the morning of the new century. With his trademark candor and brimming wit, Richard Ford brings Bascombe fully back, in all his imperfect glory, to say (often hilariously) what all of us are thinking but few will voice aloud.Whether you've been a Bascombe insider since The Sportswriter or are encountering Ford's unforgettable inventions newly here, Let Me Be Frank With You is a moving, wondrous, extremely funny odyssey, showcasing the maturity and brilliance of a great writer working at the top of his talents.

Annie and Buster Fang have spent most of their adult lives trying to distance themselves from their famous artist parents, Caleb and Camille. But when a bad economy and a few bad personal decisions converge, the two siblings have nowhere to turn but their family home. Reunited under one roof for the first time in more than a decade and surrounded by the souvenirs of their unusual upbringing, Buster and Annie are forced to confront not only their creatively ambitious parents, but the chaos and confusion of their childhood. Written with tremendous heart, wit, and honesty, Kevin Wilson's The Family Fang is a "comedy, a tragedy, and a tour de force....The best single-word description would be genius" (Ann Patchett, bestselling author of Bel Canto and State of Wonder).

Rachel Carson warned us about poisoning the environment; Jane Jacobs fought for livable cities and strong communities; Jane Goodall demonstrated the indelible kinship between humans and animals; and Alice Waters urged us to reconsider what and how we eat. This is the story of four visionaries who profoundly shaped the world we live in today: their efforts ignited a transformative progressive movement and formed the bedrock of 1960s counterculture. Together, these women?linked not by friendship or field, but by their choice to break with convention?showed what one person speaking truth to power can do.

?We have performed side-by-side on the global stage through half a century.... In Lightning Striking, Lenny Kaye has illuminated ten facets of the jewel called rock and roll from a uniquely personal and knowledgeable perspective.? ?Patti SmithAn insider's take on the evolution and enduring legacy of the music that rocked the twentieth centuryMemphis 1954. New Orleans 1957. Philadelphia 1959. Liverpool 1962. San Francisco 1967. Detroit 1969. New York, 1975. London 1977. Los Angeles 1984 / Norway 1993. Seattle 1991.Rock and roll was birthed in basements and garages, radio stations and dance halls, in cities where unexpected gatherings of artists and audience changed and charged the way music is heard and celebrated, capturing lightning in a bottle. Musician and writer Lenny Kaye explores ten crossroads of time and place that define rock and roll, its unforgettable flashpoints, characters, and visionaries; how each generation came to be; how it was discovered by the world. Whether describing Elvis Presley's Memphis, the Beatles' Liverpool, Patti Smith's New York, or Kurt Cobain's Seattle, Lightning Striking reveals the communal energy that creates a scene, a guided tour inside style and performance, to see who's on stage, along with the movers and shakers, the hustlers and hangers-on--and why everybody is listening. Grandly sweeping and minutely detailed, informed by Kaye's acclaimed knowledge and experience as a working musician, Lightning Striking is an ear-opening insight into our shared musical and cultural history, a magic carpet ride of rock and roll's most influential movements and moments.

A major collection of entirely new poems from the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning author of Time and Materials and The Apple Trees at OlemaA new volume of poetry from Robert Hass is always an event. In Summer Snow, his first collection of poems since 2010, Hass further affirms his position as one of our most highly regarded living poets. Hass's trademark careful attention to the natural world, his subtle humor, and the delicate but wide-ranging eye he casts on the human experience are fully on display in his masterful collection. Touching on subjects including the poignancy of loss, the serene and resonant beauty of nature, and the mutability of desire, Hass exhibits his virtuosic abilities, expansive intellect, and tremendous readability in one of his most ambitious and formally brilliant collections to date.

On December 31, 2006, sixty-seven-year-old scholar and grandmother Haleh Esfandiari was on her way home to the United States from Iran when she became the victim of a far-fetched conspiracy theory. On the suspicion that she was part of an American plot to bring ?regime change? to Iran, the Intelligence Ministry detained, interrogated, and eventuallyarrested her. For the next 105 days, she lived in solitary confinement in the notorious Evin Prison. Weaving together memories of her childhood in Iran, her story of capture and release, and her extensive knowledge of her homeland, My Prison, My Home is at once a mesmerizing story of survival and a clear-eyed portrait of Iran today and how it came to be.

From the internationally acclaimed Oxford authority on Communism, a definitive history that examines the origins of the ideology, its development in different nations, its collapse in many of those countries following perestroika, and its current incarnations around the globe.The Rise and Fall of Communism explores how and why Communists came to power; how they were able, in a variety of countries on different continents, to hold on to power for so long; and what brought about the downfall of so many Communist systems. For this comprehensive and illuminating work, Brown draws on more than forty years of research and on a wealth of new sources. Tracing the story of Communism from its nineteenth-century roots, Brown explains both its expansion and its decline in the twentieth century. Even today, although Communism has been widely discredited in the West, more than a fifth of humanity still lives under its rule.

The dream Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar shared of uniting Europe, the Medi-terranean, and the Middle East in a single community shuddered and then collapsed in the wars and disasters of the sixth century. Historian and classicist James J. O'Donnell?who last brought readers his masterful, disturbing, and revelatory biography of Saint Augustine?revisits this old story in a fresh way, bringing home its sometimes painful relevance to today's issues.With unexpected detail and in his hauntingly vivid style, O'Donnell begins at a time of apparent Roman revival and brings readers to the moment of imminent collapse that just preceded the rise of Islam. Illegal migrations of peoples, religious wars, global pandemics, and the temptations of empire: Rome's end foreshadows today's crises and offers hints how to navigate them?if present leaders will heed this story.

In turn-of-the-millennium India, a penniless would-be writer halts work on his novel only to feed his ceaseless desire for his beautiful wife. Then a chance occurrence moves the lovers to a sprawling old house in a mist-shrouded spur of the lower Himalayas, where a set of diaries written by a glamorous American adventuress is uncovered during renovations. Her words irresistibly draw the writer away from his beloved, thrusting him through the hole of history into another world and time, revealing dark secrets and overturning all certainties.Inventive, playful, heartbreaking, brimming with ideas and memorable characters, The Alchemy of Desire is a major literary work by one of the most significant new voices of a generation.

Published in 1956 when he was twenty-two years old, Let Us Compare Mythologies is Leonard Cohen's first book. Long out of print, it is now available exactly as it appeared fifty years ago as one of the four hundred copies published by the McGill Poetry Series in Canada, with its original cover and illustrations by Canadian artist Freda Guttman.

Both immediate and timeless, Abraham tells the powerful story of one man's search for the shared ancestor of Judaism, Christianity, andIslam. Traveling through war zones, braving violence at religious sites, andseeking out faith leaders, Bruce Feiler uncovers the defining yet divisive role that Abraham plays for half the world's believers. Provocative anduplifting, Abraham offers a thoughtful and inspiring vision of unity that redefines what we think about our neighbors, our future, and ourselves.This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.

Like the better-known Mitfords, the Garman sisters took center stage in Bohemian London during the first half of the twentieth century. Beautiful, flamboyant, and headstrong, they broke away from middle-class conventions, seducing and inspiring a generation of artists. Kathleen, an enigmatic artist's model and aspiring pianist, was the lover and, later, wife of controversial American-born sculptor Jacob Epstein. Mary married the maverick poet Roy Campbell, whose verse attack on the Bloomsbury group following Mary's affair with Vita Sackville-West was the literary scandal of the epoch. Lorna, the youngest and most beautiful of the sisters, was the lover of both the painter Lucian Freud and the poet Laurie Lee.The Rare and the Beautiful offers the first portrait of a beguiling band of eccentric siblings who possessed an uncanny ability to turn heads, break hearts, and spark creative genius. Set against the exciting backdrop of London's decadent subculture, it evokes their extraordinary milieu of high culture, drama, and scandal.

?Unexpected and satisfying.? ? New York Newsday The architect Klaus Lehmann loves his wife, Elsa, with a passion that continues throughout their married life despite long periods of separation. Almost half a century after Lehmann's death in the village of Steerborough, a young woman, Lily, arrives to research his life and work. Pouring over Klaus's letters to Elsa, Lily pieces together the story of their lives together and apart. And alone in her rented cottage by the sea, she begins to sense an absence in her own life that may not be filled by simply going home. The Sea House is the story of the village of Steerborough and the marshes and the sea beyond. It is the story of one generation living in the footprints of another; of a landscape shaped by lives, and lives shaped by landscape. With characteristic skill and a new depth and range, Esther Freud explores the twisting paths that people take?and the places where those paths meet.