Francine Prose's Books

Reading Like a Writer

A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them

By: Francine Prose

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Reading Like a Writer

A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them

By: Francine Prose

In her entertaining and edifying New York Times bestseller, acclaimed author Francine Prose invites you to sit by her side and take a guided tour of the tools and tricks of the masters to discover why their work has endured. Written with passion, humour and wisdom, Reading Like a Writer will inspire readers to return to literature with a fresh eye and an eager heart – to take pleasure in the long and magnificent sentences of Philip Roth and the breathtaking paragraphs of Isaac Babel; to look to John le Carré for a lesson in how to advance plot through dialogue and to Flannery O’ Connor for the cunning use of the telling detail; to be inspired by Emily Brontë ’ s structural nuance and Charles Dickens’ s deceptively simple narrative techniques. Most importantly, Prose cautions readers to slow down and pay attention to words, the raw material out of which all literature is crafted, and reminds us that good writing comes out of good reading.

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Page Count

263

Publisher

Union Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

1908526149

ISBN 13

9781908526144

What to Read and Why

By: Francine Prose

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What to Read and Why

By: Francine Prose

In this brilliant collection, the follow-up to her New York Times bestseller Reading Like a Writer, the distinguished novelist, literary critic, and essayist celebrates the pleasures of reading and pays homage to the works and writers she admires above all others, from Jane Austen and Charles Dickens to Jennifer Egan and Roberto Bolaño. In an age defined by hyper-connectivity and constant stimulation, Francine Prose makes a compelling case for the solitary act of reading and the great enjoyment it brings. Inspiring and illuminating, What to Read and Why includes selections culled from Prose’s previous essays, reviews, and introductions, combined with new, never-before-published pieces that focus on her favorite works of fiction and nonfiction, on works by masters of the short story, and even on books by photographers like Diane Arbus. Prose considers why the works of literary masters such as Mary Shelley, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, and Jane Austen have endured, and shares intriguing insights about modern authors whose words stimulate our minds and enlarge our lives, including Roberto Bolaño, Karl Ove Knausgaard, Jennifer Egan, and Mohsin Hamid. Prose implores us to read Mavis Gallant for her marvelously rich and compact sentences, and her meticulously rendered characters who reveal our flawed and complex human nature; Edward St. Aubyn for his elegance and sophisticated humor; and Mark Strand for his gift for depicting unlikely transformations. Here, too, are original pieces in which Prose explores the craft of writing: "On Clarity" and "What Makes a Short Story." Written with her sharp critical analysis, wit, and enthusiasm, What to Read and Why is a celebration of literature that will give readers a new appreciation for the power and beauty of the written word.

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311

Publisher

HarperCollins

Published Date

ISBN 10

0062397885

ISBN 13

9780062397881

Women and Children First

Stories

By: Francine Prose

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Women and Children First

Stories

By: Francine Prose

“Reading [this book] is like driving down the road with a companion who is so smart and funny and insightful that her conversation transforms the landscape” (Jane Smiley, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of A Thousand Acres). The twelve “meticulously observed” stories of Women and Children First showcase New York Times–bestselling author and National Book Award finalist Francine Prose at her finest—offering a glimpse into the lives of men and women searching for connection and meaning in a world that often seems pre-programmed for absurdity (The New York Times). An adult daughter struggling to understand her father’s newfound Hasidic faith, an alcoholic trying to improve himself by fasting, a housewife enrolled in the New Consciousness Academy, a French literature professor who’s begun to fear Madame Bovary, and a young woman seeking direction from a Tibetan master in the company of neurotic, overeager followers—these are the achingly, hilariously real people who inhabit these “wise and witty” stories (Minneapolis Star-Tribune).

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220

Publisher

Open Road Media

Published Date

ISBN 10

148044507X

ISBN 13

9781480445079

Sicilian Odyssey

By: Francine Prose

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Sicilian Odyssey

By: Francine Prose

A blending of art and cultural criticism, travel writing, and personal narrative, Sicilian Odyssey is Francine Prose's imaginative consideration of the diverse cultural legacies found juxtaposed and entangled on the Mediterranean island of Sicily. She writes of the intensity of Sicily, the "commitment to the extreme," where the history is more colorful, the sun hotter, the cooking earthier, the violence more horrific, the carnival more raucous, the politics more Byzantine than other places on Earth, and how much the island can teach us about the triumph of beauty over violence and life over death. Prose examines architectural sites and objects and looks at the ways in which myth and actuality converge. Exploring the intact and beautiful Greek amphitheaters at Siracusa and Taormina, the cathedral at Monreale, the Roman mosaics at Piazza Armerina, and some of the masterpieces of the Baroque scattered throughout the island, Prose focuses her keen insight to imagine them in their own time, to examine the evolution and decline of the cultures that produced them, and to deconstruct powerful responses each evokes in her. Illuminated by the author's own photographs, Sicilian Odyssey brings exotic and enigmatic Sicily to life through the prism of its past.

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190

Publisher

Disney Electronic Content

Published Date

ISBN 10

1426209088

ISBN 13

9781426209086

The Glorious Ones

A Novel

By: Francine Prose

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The Glorious Ones

A Novel

By: Francine Prose

The story of a troupe of actors in seventeenth-century Italy, from “one of a handful of truly indispensable American writers” (Gary Shteyngart). The Glorious Ones are an unlikely troupe of actors, traveling up and down the seventeenth-century Italian countryside performing commedia dell’arte for kings, for peasants, for anyone with coin. There is Armanda, the cheerful dwarf and ex-nun; chattering Columbina; Pantalone the miser; and the wicked Brighella—all led by Flaminio Scala, the self-proclaimed most courageous man in Christendom. But for all their wild differences, not one of them is prepared for the arrival of Isabella, their mysterious new director, who is about to turn their whole world upside down. Dramatic and imaginative, this tale of adventure, love, and theater is a historical romp from the award-winning, New York Times–bestselling author of novels, including Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932, and Household Saints, as well as the literary guide book Reading Like a Writer.

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175

Publisher

Open Road Media

Published Date

ISBN 10

1480445053

ISBN 13

9781480445055

1974

A Personal History

By: Francine Prose

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1974

A Personal History

By: Francine Prose

“In this remarkable memoir, the qualities that have long distinguished Francine Prose’s fiction and criticism—uncompromising intelligence, a gratifying aversion to sentiment, the citrus bite of irony—give rigor and, finally, an unexpected poignancy to an emotional, artistic, and political coming-of-age tale set in the 1970s—the decade, as she memorably puts it, when American youth realized that the changes that seemed possible in the ’60s weren’t going to happen. A fascinating and ultimately wrenching book.”—Daniel Mendelsohn, author of The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million The first memoir from critically acclaimed, bestselling author Francine Prose, about the close relationship she developed with activist Anthony Russo, one of the men who leaked the Pentagon Papers--and the year when our country changed. During her twenties, Francine Prose lived in San Francisco, where she began an intense and strange relationship with Tony Russo, who had been indicted and tried for working with Daniel Ellsberg to leak the Pentagon papers. The narrative is framed around the nights she spent with Russo driving manically around San Francisco, listening to his stories--and the disturbing and dramatic end of that relationship in New York. What happens to them mirrors the events and preoccupations of that historical moment: the Vietnam war, drugs, women's liberation, the Patty Hearst kidnapping. At once heartfelt and ironic, funny and sad, personal and political, 1974 provides an insightful look at how Francine Prose became a writer and artist during a time when the country, too, was shaping its identity.

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257

Publisher

HarperCollins

Published Date

ISBN 10

0063314126

ISBN 13

9780063314122

Touch

By: Francine Prose

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Touch

By: Francine Prose

Ninth-grader Maisie's concepts of friendship, loyalty, self-acceptance, and truth are tested to their limit after a school bus incident with the three boys who have been her best friends since early childhood.

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274

Publisher

Harper Collins

Published Date

ISBN 10

0061375179

ISBN 13

9780061375170

My New American Life

A Novel

By: Francine Prose

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My New American Life

A Novel

By: Francine Prose

“Francine Prose is a world-classsatirist who’s also a world-class storyteller.”—Russell Banks Francine Prose captures contemporary America at itsmost hilarious and dreadful in My New American Life, a darkly humorousnovel of mismatched aspirations, Albanian gangsters, and the ever-elusiveAmerican dream. Following her New York Times bestselling novels BlueAngel and A Changed Man, Prose delivers the darkly humorous storyof Lula, a twenty-something Albanian immigrant trying to find stability andcomfort in New York City in the charged aftermath of 9/11. Set at the frontlines of a cultural war between idealism and cynicism, inalienable rights andimplacable Homeland Security measures, My New American Life is a movingand sardonic journey alongside a cast of characters exploring what it means tobe American.

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293

Publisher

Harper Collins

Published Date

ISBN 10

0062079255

ISBN 13

9780062079251

Bullyville

By: Francine Prose

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Bullyville

By: Francine Prose

My father was killed on 9/11. When eighth grader Bart Rangely is granted a "mercy" scholarship to an elite private school after his father is killed in the North Tower, doors should have opened. Instead, he is terrorized and bullied by his own mentor. So begins the worst year of his life.

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208

Publisher

Harper Collins

Published Date

ISBN 10

0061883468

ISBN 13

9780061883460

Primitive People

A Novel

By: Francine Prose

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Primitive People

A Novel

By: Francine Prose

A Haitian émigré’s exposure to shallow suburbanites is “social satire at its slyest and best” from the New York Times–bestselling author (Kirkus Reviews). When the heartbroken Simone flees her native Haiti, her best option to start a new life is a quick paper marriage to a Brooklyn cab driver and a job as an underpaid caregiver to two spoiled young children in the small community of Hudson Landing, New York. But her new boss is nothing like what she’s been led to expect. The self-absorbed amateur sculptor Rosemary Porter and her morose, eccentric children George and Maisie—deserted by their philandering husband and father—rattle aimlessly around their crumbling suburban mansion. The people of Hudson Landing seem welcoming at first, but as Simone settles into this new home, her sense of unease grows. Rosemary’s sarcastic best friend, Shelly, seems as suspicious of her as her shallow boyfriend, Kenny, a children’s hair salon owner who appears eager to befriend the new au pair. A neighbor known only as “The Count” strings dead animals from trees for no reason anyone can understand. As the local community roils with secrets and attempts to outdo each other with self-importance, Simone begins to wonder just where on earth she has fled to—and if it’s any better than the violence and betrayal she left behind. As always, National Book Award finalist Francine Prose “has a wickedly sharp ear for pretentious American idiom, and no telling detail escapes her observation” as Simone struggles to make sense of these odd people and this strange, new world (The New York Times Book Review).

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267

Publisher

Open Road Media

Published Date

ISBN 10

1480445118

ISBN 13

9781480445116

Cleopatra

Her History, Her Myth

By: Francine Prose

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Cleopatra

Her History, Her Myth

By: Francine Prose

A feminist reinterpretation of the myths surrounding Cleopatra casts new light on the Egyptian queen and her legacy "A lucid and persuasive reinterpretation. Readers won't see Cleopatra the same way again."--Publishers Weekly "Where Prose really sparkles: her critiques of the cultural depictions of Cleopatra."--Allison Arieff, San Francisco Chronicle The siren passionately in love with Mark Antony, the seductress who allegedly rolled out of a carpet she had herself smuggled in to see Caesar, Cleopatra is a figure shrouded in myth. Beyond the legends immortalized by Plutarch, Shakespeare, George Bernard Shaw, and others, there are no journals or letters written by Cleopatra herself. All we have to tell her story are words written by others. What has it meant for our understanding of Cleopatra to have had her story told by writers who had a political agenda, authors who distrusted her motives, and historians who believed she was a liar? Francine Prose delves into ancient Greek and Roman literary sources, as well as modern representations of Cleopatra in art, theater, and film, to challenge narratives driven by orientalism and misogyny and offer a new interpretation of Cleopatra's history through the lens of our current era.

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209

Publisher

Yale University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0300256671

ISBN 13

9780300256673

A Changed Man

A Novel

By: Francine Prose

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A Changed Man

A Novel

By: Francine Prose

“Francine Prose has a knack for getting to the heart of human nature. . . . We are allowed to enter the moral dilemmas of fascinating characters whose emotional lives are strung out by the same human frailties, secrets and insecurities we all share.” —USA Today One spring afternoon, Vincent Nolan, a young neo-Nazi walks into the office of a human rights foundation headed by Meyer Maslow, a charismatic Holocaust survivor. Vincent announces that he wants to make a radical change. But what is Maslow to make of this rough-looking stranger with Waffen SS tattoos who says that his mission is to save guys like him from becoming guys like him? As Vincent gradually turns into the sort of person who might actually be able to do that, he also begins to transform everyone around him, including Maslow himself. Masterfully plotted, darkly comic, A Changed Man poses essential questions about human nature, morality, and the capacity for change, illuminating the everyday transactions, both political and personal, in our lives.

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656

Publisher

Harper Collins

Published Date

ISBN 10

006185977X

ISBN 13

9780061859779

Hunters and Gatherers

A Novel

By: Francine Prose

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Hunters and Gatherers

A Novel

By: Francine Prose

The New York Times–bestselling author takes on New Agers as one woman searches for meaning in this “brilliantly satiric but . . . sweet-natured” novel (Publishers Weekly). Thirty-year-old Martha is stagnating in a demeaning, woefully underpaid job as a fact-checker at frothy fashion magazine Mode and an unhappy relationship with an unrepentant jerk. But she stumbles upon an unlikely new circle of friends when she interrupts a goddess-worshipping ceremony on Fire Island and ends up rescuing its accident-prone leader, Isis Moonwagon, from the waves. From the steel skyscrapers of Manhattan to a sweat lodge in the Arizona desert, Martha chases fulfillment and self-actualization in the company of this group of opinionated, bumbling women, but the revelations she receives are not necessarily what she expected. “Prose’s satiric vision could not be more sharply focused here, and her powers of observation and deadpan humor never falter” as she sends up the New Age movement and its over-earnest adherents (The Miami Herald).

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Page Count

270

Publisher

Open Road Media

Published Date

ISBN 10

1480445096

ISBN 13

9781480445093

The Vixen

A Novel

By: Francine Prose

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The Vixen

A Novel

By: Francine Prose

Named one of the best books of 2021 by NPR, The Washington Post, and Financial Times “No one states problems more correctly, more astutely, more amusingly and more uncomfortably than Francine Prose . . . The gift of her work to a reader is to create for us what she creates for her protagonist: the subtle unfolding, the moment-by-moment process of discovery as we read and change, from not knowing and even not wanting to know or care, to seeing what we had not seen and finding our way to the light of the ending.”—Amy Bloom, New York Times Book Review "Depending on the light, it’s either a very funny serious story or a very serious funny story. But no matter how you turn it, The Vixen offers an illuminating reflection on the slippery nature of truth in America, then and now."—Washington Post Critically acclaimed, bestselling author Francine Prose returns with a dazzling new novel set in the glamorous world of 1950s New York publishing, the story of a young man tasked with editing a steamy bodice-ripper based on the recent trial and execution of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg—an assignment that will reveal the true cost of entering that seductive, dangerous new world. It’s 1953, and Simon Putnam, a recent Harvard graduate newly hired by a distinguished New York publishing firm, has entered a glittering world of three-martini lunches, exclusive literary parties, and old-money aristocrats in exquisitely tailored suits, a far cry from his loving, middle-class Jewish family in Coney Island. But Simon’s first assignment—editing The Vixen, the Patriot and the Fanatic, a lurid bodice-ripper improbably based on the recent trial and execution of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, a potboiler intended to shore up the firm’s failing finances—makes him question the cost of admission. Because Simon has a secret that, at the height of the Red Scare and the McCarthy hearings, he cannot reveal: his beloved mother was a childhood friend of Ethel Rosenberg’s. His parents mourn Ethel’s death. Simon’s dilemma grows thornier when he meets The Vixen’s author, the startlingly beautiful, reckless, seductive Anya Partridge, ensconced in her opium-scented boudoir in a luxury Hudson River mental asylum. As mysteries deepen, as the confluence of sex, money, politics and power spirals out of Simon’s control, he must face what he’s lost by exchanging the loving safety of his middle-class Jewish parents’ Coney Island apartment for the witty, whiskey-soaked orbit of his charismatic boss, the legendary Warren Landry. Gradually Simon realizes that the people around him are not what they seem, that everyone is keeping secrets, that ordinary events may conceal a diabolical plot—and that these crises may steer him toward a brighter future. At once domestic and political, contemporary and historic, funny and heartbreaking, enlivened by surprising plot turns and passages from Anya’s hilariously bad novel, The Vixen illuminates a period of history with eerily striking similarities to the current moment. Meanwhile it asks timeless questions: How do we balance ambition and conscience? What do social mobility and cultural assimilation require us to sacrifice? How do we develop an authentic self, discover a vocation, and learn to live with the mysteries of love, family, art, life and loss?

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Page Count

356

Publisher

HarperCollins

Published Date

ISBN 10

0063012162

ISBN 13

9780063012165

The Peaceable Kingdom

Stories

By: Francine Prose

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The Peaceable Kingdom

Stories

By: Francine Prose

Eleven “impeccably crafted, painfully hilarious” tales of innocence lost and families in search of connection from the New York Times–bestselling author (San Francisco Chronicle). A reluctant trophy wife on her Italian honeymoon; a young woman in love with her sister’s dead boyfriend; a lonely puppeteer flirting with the hostess of a children’s party; a teenage girl traveling to Paris with her father and, unexpectedly, his young girlfriend. Francine Prose’s characters inhabit a world of rich emotion and startling clarity, searching for connection in a world full of surprise and humor; they travel, love, break up, and start again. Even their animal companions—a gecko rescued from a wild party, a dog who bites a bride, a hamster who dies unexpectedly and sends a family on a journey to give it a proper funeral—shine with the emotional complexity and sly satire that make Prose’s work such a joy to experience. In this collection, the New York Times–bestselling author and National Book Award finalist demonstrates the craft, humor, and piercing human insight that make her, in the words of Gary Shteyngart “one of a handful of truly indispensable American writers.”

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191

Publisher

Open Road Media

Published Date

ISBN 10

148044510X

ISBN 13

9781480445109

The Turning

By: Francine Prose

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The Turning

By: Francine Prose

A dark house. An isolated island. Strange dreams and even stranger visions . . . Jack is spending the summer on a private island far from modern conveniences. No Wi-Fi, no cell service, no one else on the island but a housekeeper and the two very peculiar children in his care. The first time Jack sees the huge black mansion atop a windswept hill, he senses something cold, something more sinister than even the dark house itself. Soon, he feels terribly isolated and alone. Yet he is not alone. The house has visitors—peering in the windows, staring from across the shore. But why doesn't anyone else see them . . . and what do they want? As secrets are revealed and darker truths surface, Jack desperately struggles to maintain a grip on reality. He knows what he sees, and he isn't crazy. . . . Or is he? From nationally acclaimed author Francine Prose comes a mind-bending story that will leave you realizing how subtle the lines that separate reality, imagination, and insanity really are.

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Page Count

120

Publisher

Harper Collins

Published Date

ISBN 10

0062190288

ISBN 13

9780062190284

Goldengrove

A Novel

By: Francine Prose

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Goldengrove

A Novel

By: Francine Prose

“With a dazzling mix of directness and metaphor, Prose captures the centrifugal and isolating force of grief. . . . “[Goldengrove is] a moving meditation on how, out of the painful passing of innocence and youth, sexuality and identity can miraculously emerge.” — Los Angeles Times An emotionally powerful novel about adolescent love and loss from Francine Prose, the New York Times bestselling author of Reading Like a Writer and A Changed Man. After the sudden death of her beloved older sister, thirteen-year-old Nico finds her life on New England's idyllic Mirror Lake irrevocably altered. Left alone to grope toward understanding, she falls into a seductive, dangerous relationship with her sister's boyfriend. Over one haunted summer, Nico faces that life-changing moment when children realize their parents can no longer help them as she experiences the mystery of loss and recovery. Still, for all the darkness at its heart, Goldengrove is radiant with the lightness of summer and charged by the restless sexual tension of adolescence.

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292

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Harper Collins

Published Date

ISBN 10

0062329030

ISBN 13

9780062329035

The Lives of the Muses

Nine Women & the Artists They Inspired

By: Francine Prose

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The Lives of the Muses

Nine Women & the Artists They Inspired

By: Francine Prose

All loved, and were loved by, their artists, and inspired them with an intensity of emotion akin to Eros. In a brilliant, wry, and provocative book, National Book Award finalist Francine Prose explores the complex relationship between the artist and his muse. In so doing, she illuminates with great sensitivity and intelligence the elusive emotional wellsprings of the creative process.

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Page Count

552

Publisher

Harper Collins

Published Date

ISBN 10

0061748501

ISBN 13

9780061748509

After

By: Francine Prose

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After

By: Francine Prose

School has become a prison. No one knows why. There's no way to stop it.

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340

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Harper Collins

Published Date

ISBN 10

0060080833

ISBN 13

9780060080839

Middlemarch

By: George Eliot,Francine Prose

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Middlemarch

By: George Eliot,Francine Prose

George Eliot’s beloved classic novel—hailed by Virginia Woolf as “masterful”—follows the life, loves, foibles, and politics of the residents of a fictional English town set amid the social unrest of the Industrial Revolution. This Harper Perennial Deluxe Edition includes an introduction by award-winning author Francine Prose. Dorothea Brooke married Edward Casaubon—a clergyman and scholar some years her senior—naively hoping their union would be a true meeting of the minds. Trapped in a lonely marriage to a tyrannical man, she finds companionship with Edward’s cousin, but her overtures risk her spotless reputation and jeopardize her future. Young doctor Tertius Lydgate comes to Middlemarch full of progressive ideas, eager to volunteer his skill at the local hospital. Through his connections there he meets the mayor’s beautiful daughter, Rosamond Vincy, and marries her, only to face financial ruin at the hands of her materialism and overwhelming vanity. Rosamond’s brother, Fred, is destined for the Church to improve his family’s class standing, but his childhood sweetheart, Mary Garth, refuses to marry him unless he pursues a more suitable career. Forced by fate into uncertain financial circumstances, Fred must question his choices and desires if he hopes to earn Mary’s respect. God-fearing and esteemed, Nicholas Bulstrode is a good man and trustworthy banker—or so it appears until an old enemy comes to town, intent on revealing Bulstrode’s shady past dealings. Terrified of being exposed as a hypocrite, he takes matters into his own hands, each desperate act spiraling him further into disgrace and corruption. A masterwork of fiction, Middlemarch traces these four lives in a plot that illuminates the social fabric of mid-nineteenth-century England. Looming above the landscape of Victorian literature, Eliot’s beloved novel explores the perennial struggle between individual and society, integrity and temptation, and is as timely today as when it was first published.

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Page Count

734

Publisher

HarperCollins

Published Date

ISBN 10

0062467379

ISBN 13

9780062467379

Mister Monkey

A Novel

By: Francine Prose

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Mister Monkey

A Novel

By: Francine Prose

“Tender and artful . . . a gently spiritual celebration of life.” —New York Times Book Review Acclaimed New York Times bestselling author Francine Prose weaves an ingenious, darkly humorous, and brilliantly observant story that follows the exploits and intrigue of a constellation of characters affiliated with an off-off-off-off Broadway children’s musical Mister Monkey—a screwball children’s musical about a playfully larcenous pet chimpanzee—is the kind of family favorite that survives far past its prime. Margot, who plays the chimp’s lawyer, knows the production is dreadful and bemoans the failure of her acting career. She’s settled into the drudgery of playing a humiliating part—until the day she receives a mysterious letter from an anonymous admirer . . . and later, in the middle of a performance, has a shocking encounter with Adam, the twelve-year-old who plays the title role. Francine Prose’s effervescent comedy is told from the viewpoints of wildly unreliable, seemingly disparate characters whose lives become deeply connected as the madcap narrative unfolds. There is Adam, whose looming adolescence informs his interpretation of his role; Edward, a young audience member who is candidly unimpressed with the play; Ray, the author of the novel on which the musical is based, who witnesses one of the most awkward first dates in literature; and even the eponymous Mister Monkey, the Monkey God himself. With her trademark wit and verve, Prose delves into humanity’s most profound mysteries: art, ambition, childhood, aging, and love. Startling and captivating, Mister Monkey is a breathtaking novel from a writer at the height of her craft.

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189

Publisher

HarperCollins

Published Date

ISBN 10

0062397850

ISBN 13

9780062397850

Judah the Pious

A Novel

By: Francine Prose

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Judah the Pious

A Novel

By: Francine Prose

Winner of the National Jewish Book Award: A novel of a Polish king and a rebellious rabbi, “full of sudden delights and mocking humor” (The New York Times). The Polish monarch has outlawed a portion of the Jewish funeral rite, and none of the community’s lawyers, judges, or scholars will come forward to defend the custom before the crown. Only one man dares challenge the sovereign: the spindly old Rabbi Eliezer of Rimanov, whose eccentric habits conceal the mind of a dreamer and the curiosity of a child. The rabbi is reduced to laughter at the sight of the king, for the country’s ruler is but a boy—and Rabbi Eliezer knows how to speak to youngsters. They make a bet: If the rabbi can convince him that there is more to the universe than meets the eye, the funeral rite will be restored. To make his case, Eliezer launches into the story of Judah ben Simon, a tale of such majesty and wonder that it promises to make a dreamer out of all who hear it, changing them forevermore. Judah the Pious is a lively, early novel set in seventeenth-century Poland by one of today’s most accomplished writers, a National Book Award finalist and the New York Times–bestselling author of Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932; A Changed Man; and Reading Like a Writer.

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253

Publisher

Open Road Media

Published Date

ISBN 10

1480445134

ISBN 13

9781480445130

Caravaggio

Painter of Miracles

By: Francine Prose

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Caravaggio

Painter of Miracles

By: Francine Prose

Francine Prose's life of Caravaggio evokes the genius of this great artist through a brilliant reading of his paintings. Caravaggio defied the aesthetic conventions of his time; his use of ordinary people, realistically portrayed—street boys, prostitutes, the poor, the aged—was a profound and revolutionary innovation that left its mark on generations of artists. His insistence on painting from nature, on rendering the emotional truth of experience, whether religious or secular, makes him an artist who speaks across the centuries to our own time. Born in 1571 near Milan, Michelangelo Merisi (da Caravaggio) moved to Rome when he was twenty-one years old. He became a brilliant and successful artist, protected by the influential Cardinal del Monte and other patrons. But he was also a man of the streets who couldn't seem to free himself from its brawls and vendettas. In 1606 he fled Rome, apparently after killing another man in a dispute. He spent his last years in exile, in Naples, Malta, and Sicily, at once celebrated for his art and tormented by his enemies. Through it all, he produced masterpieces of astonishing complexity and power. Eventually he received a pardon from the Pope, only to die, in mysterious circumstances, on the way back to Rome in 1610. Francine Prose presents the brief but tumultuous life of one of the greatest of all painters with passion and acute sensitivity.

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Page Count

163

Publisher

Harper Collins

Published Date

ISBN 10

0060575603

ISBN 13

9780060575601

Leopold, the Liar of Leipzig

By: Francine Prose

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Leopold, the Liar of Leipzig

By: Francine Prose

In this new fable about the power of imagination, the people of Leipzig have marveled at the amazing tales told by Leopold, and for generations believed his stories were true. That is, until a scientist and explorer arrives and accuses Leopold of being a liar. Full color.

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Publisher

Harper Collins

Published Date

ISBN 10

0060080752

ISBN 13

9780060080754

Peggy Guggenheim

The Shock of the Modern

By: Francine Prose

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Peggy Guggenheim

The Shock of the Modern

By: Francine Prose

Portret van de Amerikaanse kunstverzamelaarster (1898-1979).

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Page Count

235

Publisher

Yale University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0300203489

ISBN 13

9780300203486

Gluttony

The Seven Deadly Sins

By: Francine Prose

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Gluttony

The Seven Deadly Sins

By: Francine Prose

A collection of observations on the American obsession with food and diet traces the evolution of the human perspective on gluttony and how it is shaped by ideals about health and spirituality; citing the transition of gluttony from a religious vice in medieval times to illness in modern times, in a second volume on one of the Seven Deadly Sins. (Philosophy)

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Age

Page Count

108

Publisher

Oxford University Press on Demand

Published Date

ISBN 10

0195156994

ISBN 13

9780195156997

Book's by Francine Prose

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