NATIONAL BESTSELLER Emily and Jessamine Bach are opposites in every way: Twenty-eight-year-old Emily is the CEO of Veritech, twenty-three-year-old Jess is an environmental activist and graduate student in philosophy. Pragmatic Emily is making a fortune in Silicon Valley, romantic Jess works in an antiquarian bookstore. Emily is rational and driven, while Jess is dreamy and whimsical. Emily’s boyfriend, Jonathan, is fantastically successful. Jess’s boyfriends, not so much. National Book Award finalist and New York Times bestselling author Allegra Goodman has written a delicious novel about appetite, temptation, and holding on to what is real in a virtual world: love that stays.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • “A richly textured portrait . . . an intimate look at a closed Orthodox community.”—Los Angeles Times Book Review NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK It is 1976. And the tiny upstate New York town of Kaaterskill Falls is bustling with summer people in dark coats, fedoras, and long, modest dresses. Living side by side with Yankee year-rounders, they are the disciples of Rav Elijah Kirshner. Elizabeth Shulman is a restless wife and mother of five daughters; her imagination transcends her cloistered community. Across the street Andras Melish is drawn to Kaaterskill by his adoring older sisters. Comforted, yet crippled by his sisters’ love, he cannot overcome the ambivalence he feels toward his own children and his young wife. At the top of the hill, Rav Kirshner is nearing the end of his life. As he struggles to decide which of his sons should succeed him—the pious but stolid Isaiah or the brilliant but rebellious Jeremy—his followers wrestle with their future and their past. With this community, Allegra Goodman weaves magic. The nationally bestselling author of The Family Markowitz crafts a tale of family and tradition—one that confirms this author’s place as a virtuoso of her generation.
READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK AS FEATURED ON TODAY • “I’ve been an Allegra Goodman fan for years, but Sam is hands down my new favorite. I loved this powerful and endearing portrait of a girl who must summon deep within herself the grit and wisdom to grow up.”—Lily King, New York Times bestselling author of Writers & Lovers NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE • What happens to a girl’s sense of joy and belonging—to her belief in herself—as she becomes a woman? This unforgettable portrait of coming-of-age offers subtle yet powerful reflections on class, parenthood, addiction, lust, and the irrepressible power of dreams. “There is a girl, and her name is Sam.” So begins Allegra Goodman’s moving and wise new novel. Sam is seven years old and living in Beverly, Massachusetts. She adores her father, though he isn’t around much. Her mother struggles to make ends meet, and never fails to remind Sam that if she studies hard and acts responsibly, adulthood will be easier—more secure and comfortable. But comfort and security are of little interest to Sam. She doesn’t fit in at school, where the other girls have the right shade of blue jeans and don’t question the rules. She doesn’t care about jeans or rules. All she wants to climb. Hanging from the highest limbs of the tallest trees, scaling the side of a building, Sam feels free. As a teenager, Sam begins to doubt herself. She yearns to be noticed, even as she wants to disappear. When her climbing coach takes an interest in her, his attention is more complicated than she anticipated. She resents her father’s erratic behavior, but she grieves after he’s gone. And she resists her mother’s attempts to plan for her future, even as that future draws closer. The simplicity of this tender, emotionally honest novel is what makes it so powerful. Sam by Allegra Goodman will break your heart, but will also leave you full of hope.
READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK AS FEATURED ON TODAY • “I’ve been an Allegra Goodman fan for years, but Sam is hands down my new favorite. I loved this powerful and endearing portrait of a girl who must summon deep within herself the grit and wisdom to grow up.”—Lily King, New York Times bestselling author of Writers & Lovers What happens to a girl’s sense of joy and belonging—to her belief in herself—as she becomes a woman? This unforgettable portrait of coming-of-age offers subtle yet powerful reflections on class, parenthood, addiction, lust, and the irrepressible power of dreams. “There is a girl, and her name is Sam.” So begins Allegra Goodman’s moving and wise new novel. Sam is seven years old and living in Beverley, Massachusetts. She adores her father, though he isn’t around much. Her mother struggles to make ends meet, and never fails to remind Sam that if she studies hard and acts responsibly, adulthood will be easier—more secure and comfortable. But comfort and security are of little interest to Sam. She doesn’t fit in at school, where the other girls have the right shade of blue jeans and don’t question the rules. She doesn’t care about jeans or rules. All she wants to climb. Hanging from the highest limbs of the tallest trees, scaling the side of a building, Sam feels free. As a teenager, Sam begins to doubt herself. She yearns to be noticed, even as she wants to disappear. When her climbing coach takes an interest in her, his attention is more complicated than she anticipated. She resents her father’s erratic behavior, but she grieves after he’s gone. And she resists her mother’s attempts to plan for her future, even as that future draws closer. The simplicity of this tender, emotionally honest novel is what makes it so powerful. Sam by Allegra Goodman will break your heart, but will also leave you full of hope.
In "The Succession," the members of a prosperous Hawaii synagogue agree on almost nothing. But when the president of the synagogue absconds with a small fortune, far deeper—and more troubling—rifts emerge...In "The Closet," Evelyn's sister flees her family to take up residence in the attic—while the shunned Evelyn finds herself slipping into the waters of her sister's soul....In "Wish List," an expert on terrorism, vacationing at an academic retreat in England,receives a late-night phone call from National Public Radio. Asked for commentary on a hostage situation of which he is ignorant, Ed can whisper only: "It's unspeakable." Total Immersion In these and other exquisite stories, Allegra Goodman fills rooms with laughter and voices, captures dinner parties, seaside picnics, academic grudges, shul politics, and the kind of hurts that only families and lovers can know. Featuring two new stories previously published in The New Yorker, Total Immersion is Allegra Goodman's first collection of short fiction—a masterful work from one of the most powerful and eloquent voices on the American literary landscape.
Hailed as “a writer of uncommon clarity” by the New Yorker, National Book Award finalist Allegra Goodman has dazzled readers with her acclaimed works of fiction, including such beloved bestsellers as The Family Markowitz and Kaaterskill Falls. Now she returns with a bracing new novel, at once an intricate mystery and a rich human drama set in the high-stakes atmosphere of a prestigious research institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Sandy Glass, a charismatic publicity-seeking oncologist, and Marion Mendelssohn, a pure, exacting scientist, are codirectors of a lab at the Philpott Institute dedicated to cancer research and desperately in need of a grant. Both mentors and supervisors of their young postdoctoral protégés, Glass and Mendelssohn demand dedication and obedience in a competitive environment where funding is scarce and results elusive. So when the experiments of Cliff Bannaker, a young postdoc in a rut, begin to work, the entire lab becomes giddy with newfound expectations. But Cliff’s rigorous colleague–and girlfriend–Robin Decker suspects the unthinkable: that his findings are fraudulent. As Robin makes her private doubts public and Cliff maintains his innocence, a life-changing controversy engulfs the lab and everyone in it. With extraordinary insight, Allegra Goodman brilliantly explores the intricate mixture of workplace intrigue, scientific ardor, and the moral consequences of a rush to judgment. She has written an unforgettable novel.
A tender affair and the redemptive power of art are at the core of this compelling novel from National Book Award finalist Allegra Goodman, “a romantic realist who dazzles with wit [and] compassion” (The Wall Street Journal). Collin James is young, creative, and unhappy. A college dropout, he waits tables and spends his free time beautifying the streets of Cambridge, Massachusetts, with his medium of choice: chalk. Collin’s art captivates passersby with its vibrant colors and intricate lines—until the moment he wipes it all away. Nothing in Collin’s life is meant to last. Then he meets Nina. . . . The daughter of a tech mogul who is revolutionizing virtual reality, Nina Lazare is trying to give back as a high school teacher—but her students won’t listen to her. When Collin enters her world, he inspires her to think bigger. Nina wants to return the favor—even if it means losing him. Against this poignant backdrop, Allegra Goodman paints a tableau of students, neighbors, and colleagues: Diana, a teenage girl trying to make herself invisible; her twin brother, Aidan, who’s addicted to the games produced by Nina’s father; and Daphne, a viral-marketing trickster who unites them all, for better or worse. Wise, warm, and enchanting, The Chalk Artist is both a finely rendered portrait of modern love and a celebration of all the realms we inhabit: real and imagined, visual and virtual, seemingly independent yet hopelessly tangled. Praise for The Chalk Artist “The virtual world Goodman conjures is as feverishly vivid as it is mysterious and alluring. Not since I pushed my way through C. S. Lewis’s fusty mothballed wardrobe and stepped out into the frozen, pine-scented forests of Narnia can I remember being so effectively transported into a viscerally, sometimes terrifyingly plausible alternate universe. . . . This is a novel full of wit and spark. . . . Irresistible and arresting.”—The New York Times Book Review “Enjoyably sharp dialogue and convincing portraits of multiple mindsets and terrains . . . One can’t help but marvel at how Goodman has captured the atmosphere of this virtual fantasy land so effectively in words.”—NPR “Mesmerizing depictions of virtual-reality landscapes of ‘Neverwhen’ and ‘Underworld’ make the games’ dangerous power over one of Nina’s students very real.”—People “Goodman’s latest combines fantastical flourishes (an imagined video game called ‘Underworld’) and realistic Cambridge details . . . in a narrative about art and ambition.”—The Boston Globe “Allegra Goodman creates suspense where you might least expect to find it.”—The Atlantic
Allegra Goodman has delighted readers with her critically acclaimed collections Total Immersion and The Family Markowitz, and her celebrated first novel, Kaaterskill Falls, which was a national bestseller and a National Book Award finalist. Abandoned by her folk-dancing partner, Gary, in a Honolulu hotel room, Sharon realizes she could return to Boston—and her estranged family—or listen to that little voice inside herself. The voice that asks: “How come Gary got to pursue his causes, while all I got to pursue was him?” Thus, with an open heart, a soul on fire, and her meager possessions (a guitar, two Indian gauze skirts, a macramé bikini, and her grandfather’s silver watch) Sharon begins her own spiritual quest. Ever the optimist, she is sure at each stage that she has struck it rich “spiritually speaking”—until she comes up empty. Then, in a karmic convergence of events, Sharon starts on the path home to Judaism. Still, even as she embraces her tradition, Sharon’s irrepressible self tugs at her sleeve. Especially when she meets Mikhail, falls truly in love at last, and discovers what even she could not imagine—her destiny.
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • From the author of The Chalk Artist, this beloved collection of linked stories is “one of the most astute and engaging books about American family life to have come our way in quite a while” (The Boston Globe). In this beloved collection of linked short stories, Allegra Goodman writes with wit and compassion about three generations of Markowitzes: Rose, the displaced, cantankerous matriarch; her devoted son, Henry, an aesthete living abroad; his younger brother, Ed, a Georgetown scholar specializing in terrorism; Ed’s wife, Sarah, a housewife with stalled literary ambitions; and their eldest daughter, Miriam, whose budding Orthodoxy bewilders her parents. Through the rhythm of ordinary family rituals—weddings, holiday dinners, hospital vigils—Goodman breathes extraordinary life into a cast of characters who reverberate with authenticity and never fail to speak their minds. Praise for The Family Markowitz “These stories sound like no one else’s. . . . Goodman is brilliant at capturing the clutter of both interior and exterior life.”—Los Angeles Times “Entertaining . . . The Family Markowitz has great consistency and charm.”—Claire Messud, The New York Times Book Review “A revelation . . . Goodman’s prose has a steady, silent reserve that always indicates she has bigger things in mind.”—Dwight Garner, Salon “One of the most astute and engaging books about American family life to have come our way in quite a while . . . [Allegra Goodman] has a gift for conveying the peculiar subtleties of Jewish culture.”—The Boston Globe “Funny and wise and keenly observed . . . one of the most engaging, maddening, and recognizable families to come along in years . . . an enchanting book.”—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
A gripping and beautifully written dystopian page-turner from New York Times bestselling author and National Book Award finalist ALLEGRA GOODMAN. In the eighteenth glorious year of Enclosure, long after The Flood, a young girl named Honor moves with her parents to Island 365 in the Tranquil Sea. Life on the tropical island is peaceful—there is no sadness and no visible violence in this world. Earth Mother and her Corporation have created New Weather. The sky is always blue and it almost never rains. Every family fits into its rightful, orderly, and predictable place… Except Honor’s. Her family does not follow the rules. They ignore curfew, sing songs, and do not pray to Earth Mother. Honor doesn’t fit in with the other children at the Old Colony School. Then she meets Helix, a boy with a big heart who slowly helps her uncover a terrible secret about the Island: Sooner or later, those who do not fit disappear, and they don’t ever come back. Honor knows her family could be next, and when the unthinkable happens, she must make the dangerous journey to the Other Side of the Island—before Earth Mother comes for her too…
READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK AS FEATURED ON TODAY • “I’ve been an Allegra Goodman fan for years, but Sam is hands down my new favorite. I loved this powerful and endearing portrait of a girl who must summon deep within herself the grit and wisdom to grow up.”—Lily King, New York Times bestselling author of Writers & Lovers NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE • What happens to a girl’s sense of joy and belonging—to her belief in herself—as she becomes a woman? This unforgettable portrait of coming-of-age offers subtle yet powerful reflections on class, parenthood, addiction, lust, and the irrepressible power of dreams. “There is a girl, and her name is Sam.” So begins Allegra Goodman’s moving and wise new novel. Sam is seven years old and living in Beverly, Massachusetts. She adores her father, though he isn’t around much. Her mother struggles to make ends meet, and never fails to remind Sam that if she studies hard and acts responsibly, adulthood will be easier—more secure and comfortable. But comfort and security are of little interest to Sam. She doesn’t fit in at school, where the other girls have the right shade of blue jeans and don’t question the rules. She doesn’t care about jeans or rules. All she wants to climb. Hanging from the highest limbs of the tallest trees, scaling the side of a building, Sam feels free. As a teenager, Sam begins to doubt herself. She yearns to be noticed, even as she wants to disappear. When her climbing coach takes an interest in her, his attention is more complicated than she anticipated. She resents her father’s erratic behavior, but she grieves after he’s gone. And she resists her mother’s attempts to plan for her future, even as that future draws closer. The simplicity of this tender, emotionally honest novel is what makes it so powerful. Sam by Allegra Goodman will break your heart, but will also leave you full of hope.
Co-authored by a novelist and a scholar, Speaking of Writing follows four college students from diverse backgrounds as they face the challenges of reading, writing, and critical thinking in first-year composition classes and across the disciplines. Each chapter engages students in relatable, often humorous scenarios that focus on key challenges. Through its story-based approach, this brief rhetoric enacts process-based pedagogy, showing student writers grappling with fundamental questions: How can I apply my own strategies for success to new assignments? How can I maintain my own voice when asked to compose in an academic style? What do college professors mean by a thesis? Why is my argument weak, and how can I make it stronger? The book vividly dramatizes a draft-and-revision process that includes instructor feedback, peer review, and careful research.
A trio of researchers--a publicity-seeking oncologist, an exacting scientist driven by a love of research, and an ambitious young lab technician--becomes caught up in the desperate quest for a financial grant from the Philpott, a prestigious research laboratory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a campaign that has a profound impact on all their lives. Reprint. 42,500 first printing.
Hailed as “a writer of uncommon clarity” by the New Yorker, National Book Award finalist Allegra Goodman has dazzled readers with her acclaimed works of fiction, including such beloved bestsellers as The Family Markowitz and Kaaterskill Falls. Now she returns with a bracing new novel, at once an intricate mystery and a rich human drama set in the high-stakes atmosphere of a prestigious research institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Sandy Glass, a charismatic publicity-seeking oncologist, and Marion Mendelssohn, a pure, exacting scientist, are codirectors of a lab at the Philpott Institute dedicated to cancer research and desperately in need of a grant. Both mentors and supervisors of their young postdoctoral protégés, Glass and Mendelssohn demand dedication and obedience in a competitive environment where funding is scarce and results elusive. So when the experiments of Cliff Bannaker, a young postdoc in a rut, begin to work, the entire lab becomes giddy with newfound expectations. But Cliff’s rigorous colleague–and girlfriend–Robin Decker suspects the unthinkable: that his findings are fraudulent. As Robin makes her private doubts public and Cliff maintains his innocence, a life-changing controversy engulfs the lab and everyone in it. With extraordinary insight, Allegra Goodman brilliantly explores the intricate mixture of workplace intrigue, scientific ardor, and the moral consequences of a rush to judgment. She has written an unforgettable novel.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • “A richly textured portrait . . . an intimate look at a closed Orthodox community.”—Los Angeles Times Book Review NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK It is 1976. And the tiny upstate New York town of Kaaterskill Falls is bustling with summer people in dark coats, fedoras, and long, modest dresses. Living side by side with Yankee year-rounders, they are the disciples of Rav Elijah Kirshner. Elizabeth Shulman is a restless wife and mother of five daughters; her imagination transcends her cloistered community. Across the street Andras Melish is drawn to Kaaterskill by his adoring older sisters. Comforted, yet crippled by his sisters’ love, he cannot overcome the ambivalence he feels toward his own children and his young wife. At the top of the hill, Rav Kirshner is nearing the end of his life. As he struggles to decide which of his sons should succeed him—the pious but stolid Isaiah or the brilliant but rebellious Jeremy—his followers wrestle with their future and their past. With this community, Allegra Goodman weaves magic. The nationally bestselling author of The Family Markowitz crafts a tale of family and tradition—one that confirms this author’s place as a virtuoso of her generation.
Allegra Goodman has delighted readers with her critically acclaimed collections Total Immersion and The Family Markowitz, and her celebrated first novel, Kaaterskill Falls, which was a national bestseller and a National Book Award finalist. Abandoned by her folk-dancing partner, Gary, in a Honolulu hotel room, Sharon realizes she could return to Boston—and her estranged family—or listen to that little voice inside herself. The voice that asks: “How come Gary got to pursue his causes, while all I got to pursue was him?” Thus, with an open heart, a soul on fire, and her meager possessions (a guitar, two Indian gauze skirts, a macramé bikini, and her grandfather’s silver watch) Sharon begins her own spiritual quest. Ever the optimist, she is sure at each stage that she has struck it rich “spiritually speaking”—until she comes up empty. Then, in a karmic convergence of events, Sharon starts on the path home to Judaism. Still, even as she embraces her tradition, Sharon’s irrepressible self tugs at her sleeve. Especially when she meets Mikhail, falls truly in love at last, and discovers what even she could not imagine—her destiny.
A gripping and beautifully written dystopian page-turner from New York Times bestselling author and National Book Award finalist ALLEGRA GOODMAN. In the eighteenth glorious year of Enclosure, long after The Flood, a young girl named Honor moves with her parents to Island 365 in the Tranquil Sea. Life on the tropical island is peaceful—there is no sadness and no visible violence in this world. Earth Mother and her Corporation have created New Weather. The sky is always blue and it almost never rains. Every family fits into its rightful, orderly, and predictable place… Except Honor’s. Her family does not follow the rules. They ignore curfew, sing songs, and do not pray to Earth Mother. Honor doesn’t fit in with the other children at the Old Colony School. Then she meets Helix, a boy with a big heart who slowly helps her uncover a terrible secret about the Island: Sooner or later, those who do not fit disappear, and they don’t ever come back. Honor knows her family could be next, and when the unthinkable happens, she must make the dangerous journey to the Other Side of the Island—before Earth Mother comes for her too…
In "The Succession," the members of a prosperous Hawaii synagogue agree on almost nothing. But when the president of the synagogue absconds with a small fortune, far deeper—and more troubling—rifts emerge...In "The Closet," Evelyn's sister flees her family to take up residence in the attic—while the shunned Evelyn finds herself slipping into the waters of her sister's soul....In "Wish List," an expert on terrorism, vacationing at an academic retreat in England,receives a late-night phone call from National Public Radio. Asked for commentary on a hostage situation of which he is ignorant, Ed can whisper only: "It's unspeakable." Total Immersion In these and other exquisite stories, Allegra Goodman fills rooms with laughter and voices, captures dinner parties, seaside picnics, academic grudges, shul politics, and the kind of hurts that only families and lovers can know. Featuring two new stories previously published in The New Yorker, Total Immersion is Allegra Goodman's first collection of short fiction—a masterful work from one of the most powerful and eloquent voices on the American literary landscape.
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • From the author of The Chalk Artist, this beloved collection of linked stories is “one of the most astute and engaging books about American family life to have come our way in quite a while” (The Boston Globe). In this beloved collection of linked short stories, Allegra Goodman writes with wit and compassion about three generations of Markowitzes: Rose, the displaced, cantankerous matriarch; her devoted son, Henry, an aesthete living abroad; his younger brother, Ed, a Georgetown scholar specializing in terrorism; Ed’s wife, Sarah, a housewife with stalled literary ambitions; and their eldest daughter, Miriam, whose budding Orthodoxy bewilders her parents. Through the rhythm of ordinary family rituals—weddings, holiday dinners, hospital vigils—Goodman breathes extraordinary life into a cast of characters who reverberate with authenticity and never fail to speak their minds. Praise for The Family Markowitz “These stories sound like no one else’s. . . . Goodman is brilliant at capturing the clutter of both interior and exterior life.”—Los Angeles Times “Entertaining . . . The Family Markowitz has great consistency and charm.”—Claire Messud, The New York Times Book Review “A revelation . . . Goodman’s prose has a steady, silent reserve that always indicates she has bigger things in mind.”—Dwight Garner, Salon “One of the most astute and engaging books about American family life to have come our way in quite a while . . . [Allegra Goodman] has a gift for conveying the peculiar subtleties of Jewish culture.”—The Boston Globe “Funny and wise and keenly observed . . . one of the most engaging, maddening, and recognizable families to come along in years . . . an enchanting book.”—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
In this enthralling story of love, loss, and divided loyalties, two students fall in love on the eve of WWI and must face a world at war—from opposing sides. Cambridge, MA, 1914: Helen Windship Brooks, the precocious daughter of the prestigious Boston family, is struggling to find herself at the renowned Harvard-Radcliffe university when carefree British playboy, Riley Spencer, and his brooding German poet-cousin, Wils Brandl, burst into her sheltered world. As Wils quietly helps the beautiful, spirited Helen navigate Harvard, they fall for each other against a backdrop of tyrannical professors, intellectual debates, and secluded boat rides on the Charles River. But with foreign tensions mounting and the country teetering on the brink of World War I, German-born Wils finds his future at Harvard—and in America—increasingly in danger. When both cousins are called to fight on opposing sides of the same war, Helen must decide if she is ready to fight her own battle for what she loves most. Based on the true story behind a mysterious and controversial World War I memorial at this world-famous university, The End of Innocence sweeps readers from the elaborate elegance of Boston's high society to Harvard's hallowed halls to Belgium's war-ravaged battlefields, offering a powerful and poignant vision of love and hope in the midst of a violent, broken world.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER Emily and Jessamine Bach are opposites in every way: Twenty-eight-year-old Emily is the CEO of Veritech, twenty-three-year-old Jess is an environmental activist and graduate student in philosophy. Pragmatic Emily is making a fortune in Silicon Valley, romantic Jess works in an antiquarian bookstore. Emily is rational and driven, while Jess is dreamy and whimsical. Emily’s boyfriend, Jonathan, is fantastically successful. Jess’s boyfriends, not so much. National Book Award finalist and New York Times bestselling author Allegra Goodman has written a delicious novel about appetite, temptation, and holding on to what is real in a virtual world: love that stays.
A tender affair and the redemptive power of art are at the core of this compelling novel from National Book Award finalist Allegra Goodman, “a romantic realist who dazzles with wit [and] compassion” (The Wall Street Journal). Collin James is young, creative, and unhappy. A college dropout, he waits tables and spends his free time beautifying the streets of Cambridge, Massachusetts, with his medium of choice: chalk. Collin’s art captivates passersby with its vibrant colors and intricate lines—until the moment he wipes it all away. Nothing in Collin’s life is meant to last. Then he meets Nina. . . . The daughter of a tech mogul who is revolutionizing virtual reality, Nina Lazare is trying to give back as a high school teacher—but her students won’t listen to her. When Collin enters her world, he inspires her to think bigger. Nina wants to return the favor—even if it means losing him. Against this poignant backdrop, Allegra Goodman paints a tableau of students, neighbors, and colleagues: Diana, a teenage girl trying to make herself invisible; her twin brother, Aidan, who’s addicted to the games produced by Nina’s father; and Daphne, a viral-marketing trickster who unites them all, for better or worse. Wise, warm, and enchanting, The Chalk Artist is both a finely rendered portrait of modern love and a celebration of all the realms we inhabit: real and imagined, visual and virtual, seemingly independent yet hopelessly tangled. Praise for The Chalk Artist “The virtual world Goodman conjures is as feverishly vivid as it is mysterious and alluring. Not since I pushed my way through C. S. Lewis’s fusty mothballed wardrobe and stepped out into the frozen, pine-scented forests of Narnia can I remember being so effectively transported into a viscerally, sometimes terrifyingly plausible alternate universe. . . . This is a novel full of wit and spark. . . . Irresistible and arresting.”—The New York Times Book Review “Enjoyably sharp dialogue and convincing portraits of multiple mindsets and terrains . . . One can’t help but marvel at how Goodman has captured the atmosphere of this virtual fantasy land so effectively in words.”—NPR “Mesmerizing depictions of virtual-reality landscapes of ‘Neverwhen’ and ‘Underworld’ make the games’ dangerous power over one of Nina’s students very real.”—People “Goodman’s latest combines fantastical flourishes (an imagined video game called ‘Underworld’) and realistic Cambridge details . . . in a narrative about art and ambition.”—The Boston Globe “Allegra Goodman creates suspense where you might least expect to find it.”—The Atlantic
READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK AS FEATURED ON TODAY • “I’ve been an Allegra Goodman fan for years, but Sam is hands down my new favorite. I loved this powerful and endearing portrait of a girl who must summon deep within herself the grit and wisdom to grow up.”—Lily King, New York Times bestselling author of Writers & Lovers What happens to a girl’s sense of joy and belonging—to her belief in herself—as she becomes a woman? This unforgettable portrait of coming-of-age offers subtle yet powerful reflections on class, parenthood, addiction, lust, and the irrepressible power of dreams. “There is a girl, and her name is Sam.” So begins Allegra Goodman’s moving and wise new novel. Sam is seven years old and living in Beverley, Massachusetts. She adores her father, though he isn’t around much. Her mother struggles to make ends meet, and never fails to remind Sam that if she studies hard and acts responsibly, adulthood will be easier—more secure and comfortable. But comfort and security are of little interest to Sam. She doesn’t fit in at school, where the other girls have the right shade of blue jeans and don’t question the rules. She doesn’t care about jeans or rules. All she wants to climb. Hanging from the highest limbs of the tallest trees, scaling the side of a building, Sam feels free. As a teenager, Sam begins to doubt herself. She yearns to be noticed, even as she wants to disappear. When her climbing coach takes an interest in her, his attention is more complicated than she anticipated. She resents her father’s erratic behavior, but she grieves after he’s gone. And she resists her mother’s attempts to plan for her future, even as that future draws closer. The simplicity of this tender, emotionally honest novel is what makes it so powerful. Sam by Allegra Goodman will break your heart, but will also leave you full of hope.
In many parts of the world there is a gathering groundswell of women seeking to reclaim their own direct experience of spiritual vision. The Goddess has become one of the most potent images of our time. Women are personally and collectively recovering their voices. Ladder to the Moon is a journey of discovery - meetings with women, like the author herself, who are asking, "What happened to the feminine aspect of the Divine? Was it ever there? If it was, can we reclaim it and come in from the cold? How can a woman, discouraged by the misogyny of most religions, begin to find a meaningful path?" The book is warmly personal and anecdotal - an Everywoman's search.
The Bethesda Handbook of Clinical Oncology is a clear, concise and comprehensive reference book for the busy clinician to use in his or her daily patient encounters. It focuses less on etiology, pathophysiology, and epidemiology, and considerably more on practical clinical information. Cancer management information is presented in a reader-friendly format that offers a comprehensive review of each disease along with the most commonly used treatment regimens, including chemotherapy dosing and schedules. Features: Clear, concise, complete reference book for busy clinician for daily patient management User-friendly formatting – tables, algorithms, charts, bullet points Contributors all from NIH (or they trained there) Great for board exams Organized by body region New to this edition: Add a chapter on Cancer Genetics and expand the Basics of Genomics for practicing oncologists to include the clinically relevant molecular tests. Major addition will be to add about 5 board review question and answers per chapter - more than 200 board review questions New treatment regimens added to all appropriate chapters New clinical trial data added on treatment More chemotherapeutic agents added (including newer regimens and dosages)
This book explores a series of powerful artifacts associated with King Solomon via legendary or extracanonical textual sources. Tracing their cultural resonance throughout history, art historian Allegra Iafrate delivers exciting insights into these objects and interrogates the ways in which magic manifests itself at a material level. Each chapter focuses on a different Solomonic object: a ring used to control demons; a mysterious set of bottles that constrain evil forces; an endless knot or seal with similar properties; the shamir, known for its supernatural ability to cut through stone; and a flying carpet that can bring the sitter anywhere he desires. Taken together, these chapters constitute a study on the reception of the figure of Solomon, but they are also cultural biographies of these magical objects and their inherent aesthetic, morphological, and technical qualities. Thought-provoking and engaging, Iafrate’s study shows how ancient magic artifacts live on in our imagination, in items such as Sauron’s ring of power, Aladdin’s lamp, and the magic carpet. It will appeal to historians of art, religion, folklore, and literature.
Of This New World offers a menagerie of utopias: real, imagined, and lost. Starting with the Garden of Eden and ending in a Mars colony, the stories wrestle with conflicts of idealism and practicality, communal ambition and individual kink. Stories jump between genres—from historical fiction to science fiction, realism to fabulism—but all ask that fundamental human question: is paradise really so impossible? Over the course of twelve stories, Hyde writes with a mix of lyricism, humor, and masterful detail. A group of environmental missionaries seeks to start an ideal eco-society on an island in The Bahamas, only to unwittingly tyrannize the local inhabitants. The neglected daughter of a floundering hippie commune must adjust to conventional life with her un-groovy grandmother. Haunted by her years at a collegiate idyll, a young woman eulogizes a friendship. After indenturing his only son to the Shakers, an antebellum vegan turns to Louisa May Alcott’s famous family for help. And in the final story, a former drug addict chases a second chance at life in a government-sponsored space population program. An unmissable debut, the collection charts the worlds born in our dreams and bred in hope.
In The Wandering Throne of Solomon: Objects and Tales of Kingship in the Medieval Mediterranean Allegra Iafrate analyzes the circulation of artifacts and literary traditions related to king Solomon, particularly among Christians, Jews and Muslims, from the 10th to the 13th century. The author shows how written sources and objects of striking visual impact interact and describes the efforts to match the literary echoes of past wonders with new mirabilia. Using the throne of Solomon as a case-study, she evokes a context where Jewish rabbis, Byzantine rulers, Muslim ambassadors, Christian sovereigns and bishops all seem to share a common imagery in art, technology and kingship.
READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK AS FEATURED ON TODAY • “I’ve been an Allegra Goodman fan for years, but Sam is hands down my new favorite. I loved this powerful and endearing portrait of a girl who must summon deep within herself the grit and wisdom to grow up.”—Lily King, New York Times bestselling author of Writers & Lovers NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE • What happens to a girl’s sense of joy and belonging—to her belief in herself—as she becomes a woman? This unforgettable portrait of coming-of-age offers subtle yet powerful reflections on class, parenthood, addiction, lust, and the irrepressible power of dreams. “There is a girl, and her name is Sam.” So begins Allegra Goodman’s moving and wise new novel. Sam is seven years old and living in Beverly, Massachusetts. She adores her father, though he isn’t around much. Her mother struggles to make ends meet, and never fails to remind Sam that if she studies hard and acts responsibly, adulthood will be easier—more secure and comfortable. But comfort and security are of little interest to Sam. She doesn’t fit in at school, where the other girls have the right shade of blue jeans and don’t question the rules. She doesn’t care about jeans or rules. All she wants to climb. Hanging from the highest limbs of the tallest trees, scaling the side of a building, Sam feels free. As a teenager, Sam begins to doubt herself. She yearns to be noticed, even as she wants to disappear. When her climbing coach takes an interest in her, his attention is more complicated than she anticipated. She resents her father’s erratic behavior, but she grieves after he’s gone. And she resists her mother’s attempts to plan for her future, even as that future draws closer. The simplicity of this tender, emotionally honest novel is what makes it so powerful. Sam by Allegra Goodman will break your heart, but will also leave you full of hope.
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