Double Vision from Pat Barker, a gripping novel about the effects of violence on the journalists and artists who have dedicated themselves to representing it In the aftermath of September 11, 2001, reeling from the effects of reporting from New York City, two British journalists, a writer, Stephen Sharkey, and a photographer, Ben Frobisher, part ways. Stephen, facing the almost simultaneous discovery that his wife is having an affair, returns to...

Mild-mannered Harry Caldecote, a retired librarian, is determined to protect his time and privacy, but the sense of responsibility for an assortment of extended family members and friends leads to a life of adventure.

"An unsuccessful writer and an inveterate alcoholic, Boris Alikhanov has recently divorced his wife Tatyana, and he is running out of money. The prospect of a summer job as a tour guide at the Pushkin Hills Preserve offers him hope of regaining some balance in life as his wife makes plans to emigrate to the West with their daughter Masha, but during Alikhanov's stay in the rural estate of Mikhaylovskoye, his life continues to unravel"--

During the years he spends in a neural health facility, Pat Peoples formulates a theory about silver linings: he believes his life is a movie produced by God, his mission is to become physically fit and emotionally supportive, and his happy ending will be the return of his estranged wife, Nikki. When Pat goes to live with his parents, everything seems changed: no one will talk to him about Nikki; his old friends are saddled with families; the Philadelphia...

Zoe, a sometime artist, is from California. Martin, an engineer, is from Yorkshire. Both have ended up in picturesque Cluny, in central France. Both are struggling to come to terms with their recent past - for Zoe, the death of her husband; for Martin, a messy divorce. Looking to make a new start, each sets out alone to walk 2000 kilometres from Cluny to Santiago de Compostela, in northwestern Spain, in the footsteps of pilgrims who have walked the...

"Mary Miller seizes the mantle of southern literature with this wry tale of middle age and the unexpected turns a life can take. Like her predecessors Ann Beattie and Raymond Carver, Mary Miller brings an essential voice to her generation. Building on her critically acclaimed novel, The Last Days of California, and her biting collection, Always Happy Hour, Miller slyly transports readers to her unapologetic corner of the South -- this time, Biloxi,...

In "The Lay of the Land," the lethargic third installment of Frank?s story (it follows "The Sportswriter," published in 1986, and the 1995 sequel "Independence Day"), Mr. Ford gives us three days in his hero?s life in New Jersey. It is Thanksgiving week in the year 2000, as the contested presidential election drags on, and the boom years of the 90?s are beginning to turn a corner. Frank has been treated for prostate cancer, his second wife has unexpectedly...

Severely wounded in the Iraq war, Leroy Kervin has lived in a group home for eight years. Frustrated by the simplest daily routines, he finds his existence has become unbearable. An act of desperation helps him disappear deep into his mind, into a world of romance and science fiction, danger and adventure where he is whole once again. Freddie McCall, the night man at Leroy's group home, works two jobs yet still can't make ends meet. He's lost his...