Chronic City by Jonathan Lethem 20/01/2010
![]() Chase Insteadman, a handsome, inoffensive fixture on Manhattan's social scene, lives off residuals earned as a child star on a beloved sitcom called Martyr + Pesty. Chase owes his current social cachet to an ongoing tragedy much covered in the tabloids: His teenage sweetheart and fiancee, Janice Trumbull, is trapped by a layer of low-orbit mines on the International Space Station, from which she sends him rapturous and heartbreaking love letters. Like Janice, Chase is adrift, she in Earth's stratosphere, he in a vague routine punctuated by Upper East Side dinner parties. Into Chase's cloistered city enters Perkus Tooth, a wall-eyed free-range pop critic whose soaring conspiratorial riffs are fueled by high-grade marijuana, mammoth cheeseburgers, and a desperate ache for meaning. Perkus's countercultural savvy and voracious paranoia draw Chase into another Manhattan, where questions of what is real, what is fake, and who is complicit take on a life-shattering urgency. Along with Oona Laszlo, a self-loathing ghostwriter, and Richard Abneg, a hero of the Tompkins Square Park riot now working as a fixer for the billionaire mayor, Chase and Perkus attempt to unearth the answers to several mysteries that seem to offer that rarest of artifacts on an island where everything can be bought Add Comment The Legacy by Kirsten Tranter 20/01/2010
![]() Beautiful Ingrid inherits a fortune and leaves Australia, and her friends, and Ralph who loves her, to marry Gil Grey and set up home amid the New York art world. There she becomes the stepmother to Gil′s teenage artist daughter Fleur, a former child prodigy, and studies ancient curse scrolls at Columbia University. But at 9am on September 11, 2001, she has an appointment downtown. And is never seen again. Or is she? Searching for clues about Ingrid′s life a year later, her friend Julia uncovers only further layers of mystery and deception. Both an unputdownable mystery and a compelling meditation on the nature of art, truth, friendship and love, THE LEGACY announces the arrival of a major new talent. The World in Vogue: People, Parties, Places 11/01/2010
![]() This one-of-a-kind book of 300 photographs of some of the most celebrated actors, artists, models, First Ladies, and social figures draws on stories that have appeared in the pages of Vogue over the past four decades, as well as photographs from those stories that have never been published. These trendsetters and newsmakers are captured by such famous photographers as Cecil Beaton, Jonathan Becker, Eric Boman, Horst P. Horst, Edward Steichen, Irving Penn, Richard Avedon, François Halard, Helmut Newton, Stephen Meisel, Snowdon, Toni Frissell, Bruce Weber, Herb Ritts, and Annie Leibovitz. Not only did these photographers take dazzling portraits—in studios or on location—that caught these iconic figures in classic, playful, or dramatic moments but they also documented their parties, weddings, houses, and gardens. Committed by Elizabeth Gilbert 11/01/2010
![]() At the end of her bestselling memoir Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert fell in love with Felipe - a Brazilian-born man of Australian citizenship who'd been living in Indonesia when they met. Resettling in America, the couple swore eternal fidelity to each other, but also swore to never, ever, under any circumstances get legally married. (Both were survivors of previous horrific divorces. Enough said.) But providence intervened one day in the form of the U.S. government, who - after unexpectedly detaining Felipe at an American border crossing - gave the couple a choice: they could either get married, or Felipe would never be allowed to enter the country again. Having been effectively sentenced to wed, Gilbert tackled her fears of marriage by delving completely into this topic, trying with all her might to discover (through historical research, interviews and much personal reflection) what this stubbornly enduring old institution actually is. The result is Committed - a witty and intelligent contemplation of marriage that debunks myths, unthreads fears and suggests that sometimes even the most romantic of souls must trade in her amorous fantasies for the humbling responsibility of adulthood. ![]() It is a troublesome fact on which even Mma Ramotswe and her assistant Mma Makutsi agree: there are things that men know and ladies do not, and vice versa. It is unfortunate, for example, when Mma Ramotswe s newest client is the big-shot owner of the ailing Kalahari Swoopers, that one thing lady detectives know very little about is football. And when the glamorous Violet Sephotho sets her sights on Mma Makutsi s unsuspecting fianc , it becomes exasperatingly clear that some men do not know how to recognise a ruthless Jezebel even when she is bouncing up and down on the best bed in the Double Comfort Furniture Shop.In her attempt to foster understanding between the sexes and find the traitor on Mr Football s team, Mma Ramotswe ventures into new territory, drinks tea in unfamiliar kitchens and learns to trust in the observational powers of small boys. And, as wise and warm-hearted as his heroine, Alexander McCall Smith reminds us that we must dig deep to uncover the goodness of the human heart. Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde 11/01/2010
![]() No one could cheat the Colourman and the colour test. What you got was what you were, forever. Your life, career and social standing decided right there and then, and all worrisome life-uncertainties eradicated forever. You knew who you were, what you would do, where you would go, and what was expected of you. In return, you simply accepted your rung upon the Chromatic ladder, and assiduously followed the Rulebook. Your life was mapped. And all in the time it takes to bake a tray of scones . . . Eddie Russett lives comfortably in a world where fortune, career and ultimate destiny are rigidly dictated by the colours you can see. Until he falls in love with a Grey named Jane, and starts to question every aspect of the Rulebook. Why are spoons illegal? And what actually happens to all those people who are sent to the Emerald City to Reboot Consolation by Anna Gavalda 04/01/2010
![]() A 47-year-old successful architect hears about the death of a woman, whom he once loved – Anouk, the tragically big-hearted mother of a childhood friend - and his life starts to unravel. Charles seems to have everything, but turns his back on the present to go in search of her past and his childhood, falling a long way down. One day he finds himself on a Paris pavement covered in his own blood. But, as the title suggests, fate holds out a final chance of consolation – when, far from his Parisian milieu, he meets Kate, an enchanting young woman, herself damaged but fearless and in love with life. Alive with wit and vivid observation, sparkling dialogue and brilliant characters, this is a triumphant, spellbinding, finally consoling novel about life, love and second chances. | CategoriesAll ArchivesFebruary 2012 |
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