Kristopher Jansma's Books

Our Narrow Hiding Places

A Novel

By: Kristopher Jansma

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An elderly woman recounts her Dutch family’s survival during the final years of Nazi occupation, shedding new light on old secrets that rippled through subsequent generations. Eighty-year-old Mieke Geborn’s life is one of quiet routine. Widowed for many years, she enjoys the view from her home on the New Jersey shore, visits with friends, and tai chi at the local retirement community. But when her beloved grandson, Will, and his wife, Teru, show up for a visit, things are soon upended. Their marriage is threatening to unravel, and Will has questions for his grandmother—questions about family secrets that have been lost for decades and are now finally rising to the surface. But telling Will the truth involves returning to the past, and to Mieke’s childhood in coastal Holland. There, in the last years of World War II, she survived the Hunger Winter, a brutal season when food and heat were cut off and thousands of Dutch citizens starved. Her memories weave together childhood magic and the madness of history, and carry readers from the windy beaches of the Hague to the dark cells of a concentration camp, through the bends of eel-filled rivers, and, finally, to the story of Will’s father, absent since Will’s childhood. Our Narrow Hiding Places is a sweeping story of survival and of the terrible cost of war—and a reminder that sometimes the traumas we inherit come along with a resilience we never imagined.

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Page Count

306

Publisher

HarperCollins

Published Date

ISBN 10

0063352915

ISBN 13

9780063352919

Revisionaries

What We Can Learn from the Lost, Unfinished, and Just Plain Bad Work of Great Writers

By: Kristopher Jansma

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Revisionaries

What We Can Learn from the Lost, Unfinished, and Just Plain Bad Work of Great Writers

By: Kristopher Jansma

Find creative inspiration in this fascinating rummage through the wastebaskets, secret diaries, and abandoned files of 20 literary superstars. If you like to write—whether it’s a pastime, a passion, or a profession—you’ve probably found yourself reading something brilliant and thinking, “I could never do this! I might as well give up.” But if there’s one thing every great author has in common, it’s this: they’ve all written some hot garbage. In Revisionaries, a writing expert takes you on an engrossing tour through the discarded drafts, false starts, and abandoned projects of influential writers. In the process, he dismantles some of our most deeply held—and most suffocating—ideas about what it takes to produce great creative work. You’ll learn that: Franz Kafka lacked confidence Octavia Butler had writer's block F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote bad drafts Ralph Ellison got overwhelmed Louisa May Alcott got off to a bad start And more deep, dark secrets about the authors you most admire Written by an award-winning novelist and creative-writing professor, Revisionaries is a compelling peek behind the scenes of genius for writers and readers alike.

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Page Count

321

Publisher

Quirk Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

1683693744

ISBN 13

9781683693741

Why We Came to the City

A Novel

By: Kristopher Jansma

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Why We Came to the City

A Novel

By: Kristopher Jansma

“Stunning . . . A beautiful, sprawling, and generous book. Jansma is a brilliantly talented writer, but he also has a unique insight into what friends mean to one another, and what it means to be part of a city in which you never quite belong, but can’t quite bring yourself to leave. It’s a heartfelt novel, tender and painful and cathartic all at once, and even if the characters belong to New York, the story belongs to us all.” —NPR December, 2008. A heavy snowstorm is blowing through Manhattan and the economy is on the brink of collapse, but none of that matters to a handful of guests at a posh holiday party. Five years after their college graduation, the fiercely devoted friends at the heart of this richly absorbing novel remain as inseparable as ever: editor and social butterfly Sara Sherman, her troubled astronomer boyfriend George Murphy, loudmouth poet Jacob Blaumann, classics major turned investment banker William Cho, and Irene Richmond, an enchanting artist with an inscrutable past. Amid cheerful revelry and free-flowing champagne, the friends toast themselves and the new year ahead—a year that holds many surprises in store. They must navigate ever-shifting relationships with the city and with one another, determined to push onward in pursuit of their precarious dreams. And when a devastating blow brings their momentum to a halt, the group is forced to reexamine their aspirations and chart new paths through unexpected losses. Kristopher Jansma’s award-winning debut novel, The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards, was praised for its “wry humor” and “charmingly unreliable narrator” in The New Yorker and hailed as “F. Scott Fitzgerald meets Wes Anderson” by The Village Voice. In Why We Came to the City, Jansma offers an unforgettable exploration of friendships forged in the fires of ambition, passion, hope, and love. This glittering story of a generation coming of age is a sweeping, poignant triumph.

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Page Count

434

Publisher

Penguin

Published Date

ISBN 10

0698152131

ISBN 13

9780698152137

The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards

A Novel

By: Kristopher Jansma

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The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards

A Novel

By: Kristopher Jansma

Winner of the Sherwood Anderson Foundation Fiction Award Honorable Mention for the PEN/Hemingway Award "F. Scott Fitzgerald meets Wes Anderson" (The Village Voice) in this inventive and witty debut about a young man’s quest to become a writer and the misadventures in life and love that take him around the globe—from the author of Why We Came to the City As early as he can remember, the narrator of this remarkable novel has wanted to become a writer. From the jazz clubs of Manhattan to the villages of Sri Lanka, Kristopher Jansma’s hopelessly unreliable—yet hopelessly earnest—narrator will be haunted by the success of his greatest friend and literary rival, the brilliant Julian McGann, and endlessly enamored with Evelyn, the green-eyed girl who got away. A profound exploration of the nature of truth and storytelling, this delightful picaresque tale heralds Jansma as a bold, new American voice.

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Page Count

274

Publisher

Penguin

Published Date

ISBN 10

0143125028

ISBN 13

9780143125020

Revisionaries

What We Can Learn from the Lost, Unfinished, and Just Plain Bad Work of Great Writers

By: Kristopher Jansma

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Revisionaries

What We Can Learn from the Lost, Unfinished, and Just Plain Bad Work of Great Writers

By: Kristopher Jansma

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Solve jigsaw puzzle

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Page Count

321

Publisher

Quirk Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

1683693744

ISBN 13

9781683693741

Why We Came to the City

A Novel

By: Kristopher Jansma

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Why We Came to the City

A Novel

By: Kristopher Jansma

Joyful and tragic, Jansma’s book will appeal to readers who loved Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life.”—Men’s Journal “Stunning . . . A beautiful, sprawling, and generous book. Jansma is a brilliantly talented writer, but he also has a unique insight into what friends mean to one another, and what it means to be part of a city in which you never quite belong, but can’t quite bring yourself to leave. It’s a heartfelt novel, tender and painful and cathartic all at once, and even if the characters belong to New York, the story belongs to us all.” —NPR December, 2008. A heavy snowstorm is blowing through Manhattan and the economy is on the brink of collapse, but none of that matters to a handful of guests at a posh holiday party. Five years after their college graduation, the fiercely devoted friends at the heart of this richly absorbing novel remain as inseparable as ever: editor and social butterfly Sara Sherman, her troubled astronomer boyfriend George Murphy, loudmouth poet Jacob Blaumann, classics major turned investment banker William Cho, and Irene Richmond, an enchanting artist with an inscrutable past. Amid cheerful revelry and free-flowing champagne, the friends toast themselves and the new year ahead—a year that holds many surprises in store. They must navigate ever-shifting relationships with the city and with one another, determined to push onward in pursuit of their precarious dreams. And when a devastating blow brings their momentum to a halt, the group is forced to reexamine their aspirations and chart new paths through unexpected losses. Kristopher Jansma’s award-winning debut novel, The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards, was praised for its “wry humor” and “charmingly unreliable narrator” in The New Yorker and hailed as “F. Scott Fitzgerald meets Wes Anderson” by The Village Voice. In Why We Came to the City, Jansma offers an unforgettable exploration of friendships forged in the fires of ambition, passion, hope, and love. This glittering story of a generation coming of age is a sweeping, poignant triumph.

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Page Count

434

Publisher

Penguin

Published Date

ISBN 10

0143109642

ISBN 13

9780143109648

The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards

A Novel

By: Kristopher Jansma

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The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards

A Novel

By: Kristopher Jansma

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

274

Publisher

Penguin

Published Date

ISBN 10

0143125028

ISBN 13

9780143125020

Book's by Kristopher Jansma

Our Narrow Hiding Places

Our Narrow Hiding Places

Revisionaries

Revisionaries

Why We Came to the City

Why We Came to the City

The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards

The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards

Revisionaries

Revisionaries

Why We Came to the City

Why We Came to the City

The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards

The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards

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