Marie-Helene Bertino's Books

Parakeet

A Novel

By: Marie-Helene Bertino

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Acclaimed author of 2 A.M. at the Cat's Pajamas Marie-Helene Bertino's Parakeet is a darkly funny and warm-hearted novel about a young woman whose dead grandmother (in the form of a parakeet) warns her not to marry and sends her out to find an estranged loved one. The week of her wedding, The Bride is visited by a bird she recognizes as her dead grandmother because of the cornflower blue line beneath her eyes, her dubious expression, and the way she asks: What is the Internet? Her grandmother is a parakeet. She says not to get married. She says: Go and find your brother. In the days that follow, The Bride's march to the altar becomes a wild and increasingly fragmented, unstable journey that bends toward the surreal and forces her to confront matters long buried. A novel that does justice to the hectic confusion of becoming a woman today, Parakeet asks and begins to answer the essential questions. How do our memories make, cage, and free us? How do we honor our experiences and still become our strongest, truest selves? Who are we responsible for, what do we owe them, and how do we allow them to change? Urgent, strange, warm-hearted, and sly, Parakeet is ribboned with joy, fear, and an inextricable thread of real love. It is a startling, unforgettable, life-embracing exploration of self and connection.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

240

Publisher

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Published Date

ISBN 10

0374229457

ISBN 13

9780374229450

Exit Zero

Stories

By: Marie-Helene Bertino

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Exit Zero

Stories

By: Marie-Helene Bertino

Twelve delightfully strange, haunting stories from the acclaimed, oracular author of Beautyland. Death-shaped entities—with all of their humor and strangeness— haunt the twelve stories in Exit Zero. Vampires, ghost girls, fathers, blank spaces, day-old peaches, and famous paintings all pierce through their world into ours, reminding us to pay attention! and look alive! and offering many other flashes of wisdom from the oracle and author of Beautyland, Marie-Helene Bertino.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

N/A

Publisher

FSG Originals

Published Date

ISBN 10

0374616485

ISBN 13

9780374616489

Safe as Houses

By: Marie-Helene Bertino

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Safe as Houses

By: Marie-Helene Bertino

The titular story revolves around an aging English professor who, mourning the loss of his wife, robs other people's homes of their sentimental knick-knacks. In "Free Ham," a young dropout wins a ham after her house burns down and refuses to accept it. "Has my ham done anything wrong?" she asks when the grocery store manager demands that she claim it. In "Carry Me Home, Sisters of Saint Joseph," a failed commercial writer moves into the basement of a convent and inadvertently discovers the secrets of the Sisters of Saint Joseph. A girl, hoping to talk her brother out of enlisting in the army, brings Bob Dylan home for Thanksgiving dinner in the quiet, dreamy "North Of." In "The Idea of Marcel," Emily, a conservative, elegant girl, has dinner with the idea of her ex-boyfriend, Marcel. In a night filled with baffling coincidences, including Marcel having dinner with his idea of Emily, she wonders why we tend to be more in love with ideas than with reality. In and out of the rooms of these gritty, whimsical stories roam troubled, funny people struggling to reconcile their circumstances to some kind of American Ideal and failing, over and over.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

143

Publisher

University of Iowa Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1609381149

ISBN 13

9781609381141

2 A.M. at The Cat's Pajamas

A Novel

By: Marie-Helene Bertino

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

2 A.M. at The Cat's Pajamas

A Novel

By: Marie-Helene Bertino

An enchanting novel about one day in the lives of three unforgettable characters as they search for love, music, and hope on the snow-covered streets of Philadelphia. Madeleine Altimari is a smart-mouthed, rebellious nine-year-old who also happens to be an aspiring jazz singer. Still mourning the recent death of her mother, and caring for her grief-stricken father, she doesn’t realize that on the eve of Christmas Eve she is about to have the most extraordinary day—and night—of her life. After bravely facing down mean-spirited classmates and rejection at school, Madeleine doggedly searches for Philadelphia's legendary jazz club The Cat's Pajamas, where she’s determined to make her on-stage debut. On the same day, her fifth grade teacher Sarina Greene, who’s just moved back to Philly after a divorce, is nervously looking forward to a dinner party that will reunite her with an old high school crush, afraid to hope that sparks might fly again. And across town at The Cat's Pajamas, club owner Lorca discovers that his beloved haunt may have to close forever, unless someone can find a way to quickly raise the $30,000 that would save it. Together, Madeleine, Sarina, and Lorca will discover life’s endless possibilities over the course of one magical night. A vivacious, charming and moving debut, 2 A.M. at The Cat's Pajamas will capture your heart and have you laughing out loud.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

290

Publisher

Crown

Published Date

ISBN 10

0804140251

ISBN 13

9780804140256

2 A.M. at the Cat's Pajamas

A Novel

By: Marie-Helene Bertino

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

2 A.M. at the Cat's Pajamas

A Novel

By: Marie-Helene Bertino

Madeleine Altimari is a sassy, smart-mouthed nine-year-old and an aspiring jazz singer, inwardly mourning the recent death of her mother. Little does she know that on Christmas Eve Eve she is about to have the most extraordinary day - and night - of her life. After bravely facing down some mean-spirited classmates and a galling rejection at school, Madeleine doggedly searches for Philadelphia's legendary jazz club The Cat's Pajamas, where she's determined to make her on-stage debut. Meanwhile, her fifth-grade teacher Sarina Greene is nervously looking forward to a dinner party that will reunite her with an old high-school crush. And across town at The Cat's Pajamas, club owner Jack Lorca discovers that his beloved haunt may have to close forever . . . As these three lost souls search for love, music and hope on the snow-covered streets of Philadelphia, together they will discover life's endless possibilities over the course of one magical night. A vivacious, charming and moving novel, 2 A.M. At The Cat's Pajamas will swell your heart and have you laughing out loud.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

256

Publisher

Picador

Published Date

ISBN 10

1447254422

ISBN 13

9781447254423

Beautyland

A Novel

By: Marie-Helene Bertino

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Beautyland

A Novel

By: Marie-Helene Bertino

A Dakota Johnson x TeaTime Book Club Pick A Best Book of the Year: The New York Times Book Review, Time, Elle, Esquire, Goodreads, and WBEZ Chicago A Must-Read: Nylon, The Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Review of Books, Literary Hub, The Millions, Kirkus Reviews, BookRiot, The Christian Science Monitor, Our Culture, The Saturday Evening Post, Philadelphia magazine “A monumental accomplishment, a shimmering masterpiece.” —Michael Schaub, The Boston Globe “A book that I will recommend to people for the rest of my life.” —Dakota Johnson, Bustle From the acclaimed author of Parakeet, Marie-Helene Bertino’s Beautyland is a wise, tender novel about a woman who doesn’t feel at home on Earth. At the moment when Voyager 1 is launched into space carrying its famous golden record, a baby of unusual perception is born to a single mother in Philadelphia. Adina Giorno is tiny and jaundiced, but she reaches for warmth and light. As a child, she recognizes that she is different: She possesses knowledge of a faraway planet. The arrival of a fax machine enables her to contact her extraterrestrial relatives, beings who have sent her to report on the oddities of Earthlings. For years, as she moves through the world and makes a life for herself among humans, she dispatches transmissions on the terrors and surprising joys of their existence. Then, at a precarious moment, a beloved friend urges Adina to share her messages with the world. Is there a chance she is not alone? Marie-Helene Bertino’s Beautyland is a novel of startling originality about the fragility and resilience of life on our Earth and in our universe. It is a remarkable evocation of the feeling of being in exile at home, and it introduces a gentle, unforgettable alien for our times.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

219

Publisher

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Published Date

ISBN 10

0374721890

ISBN 13

9780374721893

PEN America Best Debut Short Stories 2017

By: Yuka Igarashi

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

PEN America Best Debut Short Stories 2017

By: Yuka Igarashi

THE INAUGURAL ANTHOLOGY OF LITERATURE'S MOST PROMISING NEW VOICES "A welcome addition to the run of established short story annuals, promising good work to come." —Kirkus Reviews Many writers who are household names today got their start when an editor encountered their work for the first time and took a chance. This book celebrates twelve such moments of discovery. The first volume of an annual anthology, launched alongside PEN's new Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers, it recognizes writers who have had outstanding fiction debuts in a print or online literary magazine. The winning stories collected here—selected this year by judges Marie–Helene Bertino, Kelly Link, and Nina McConigley—take place in South Carolina and in South Korea, on a farm in the eighteenth century and among the cubicles of a computer– engineering firm in the present day. They narrate age–old themes with current urgency: migration, memory, technology, language, love, ecology, identity, family. Each work comes with an introduction by the editor who originally published it, explaining why he or she chose it. The commentaries provide insight into a process that often remains opaque to readers and students of writing, and showcase the vital work literary magazines do to nurture contemporary literature's new voices.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

N/A

Publisher

National Geographic Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

1936787687

ISBN 13

9781936787685

Book's by Marie-Helene Bertino

Parakeet

Parakeet

Exit Zero

Exit Zero

Safe as Houses

Safe as Houses

2 A.M. at The Cat's Pajamas

2 A.M. at The Cat's Pajamas

2 A.M. at the Cat's Pajamas

2 A.M. at the Cat's Pajamas

Beautyland

Beautyland

PEN America Best Debut Short Stories 2017

PEN America Best Debut Short Stories 2017

Username

Password

Username

Password

Password again

Birthday

Email