Simon Van Booy's Books

Father's Day

A Novel

By: Simon Van Booy

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“Van Booy’s great triumph comes in using a family secret to underscore the message that family is as much a choice as a blood tie. Although any reader will find something to love here, someone who has benefited from a perfectly imperfect family will wear the widest smile. This little book with a big heart is suitable not just for Father’s Day, but for any day.” — Shelf Awareness When devastating news shatters the life of six-year-old Harvey, she finds herself in the care of a veteran social worker, Wanda, and alone in the world save for one relative she has never met—a disabled felon, haunted by a violent past he can't escape. Moving between past and present, Father’s Day weaves together the story of Harvey’s childhood on Long Island and her life as a young woman in Paris. Written in raw, spare prose that personifies the characters, this novel is the journey of two people searching for a future in the ruin of their past. Father's Day is a meditation on the quiet, sublime power of compassion, and the beauty of simple, everyday things—a breakthrough work from one of our most gifted chroniclers of the human heart.

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Page Count

200

Publisher

HarperCollins

Published Date

ISBN 10

0062408968

ISBN 13

9780062408969

The Sadness of Beautiful Things

Stories

By: Simon Van Booy

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The Sadness of Beautiful Things

Stories

By: Simon Van Booy

An exquisite new collection of short stories from award-winning author Simon Van Booy. Over the past decade, Simon Van Booy has been listening to people’s stories. With these personal accounts as a starting point, he has crafted a powerful collection of short fiction that takes readers into the innermost lives of everyday people. From a family saved from ruin by a mysterious benefactor, to a downtrodden boxer who shows unexpected kindness to a mugger, these masterfully written tales reveal not only the precarious balance maintained between grief and happiness in our lives, but also how the echoes of personal tragedy can shape us for the better. “Van Booy’s stories are somehow like paintings the characters walk out of, and keep walking.” —Los Angeles Times "Simon Van Booy knows a great deal about the complex longings of the human heart." --Robert Olen Butler, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain

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Page Count

210

Publisher

Penguin

Published Date

ISBN 10

0525504869

ISBN 13

9780525504863

Tiger, Tiger

Stories

By: Simon Van Booy

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Tiger, Tiger

Stories

By: Simon Van Booy

“Simon Van Booy knows a great deal about the complex longings of the human heart, and he articulates those truths in his stories with pitch-perfect elegance. Love Begins in Winter is a splendid collection, and Van Booy is now a writer on my must-always-read list.” — Robert Olen Butler, Pulitizer Prize-winning author of A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain and Severance A new collection of stories from award-winning writer Simon Van Booy that explores the beauty of connection and the anguish of loss. In Love Begins in Winter, Simon Van Booy offers intimate scenes of tragic loss, redemptive tales of unlikely connection, and breathtaking moments that never really end. These stories, set around the world, are a perfect synthesis of grace, intensity, atmosphere, and compassion. From a famous French cellist who heals the heart of a lost woman to a suitor who polishes eggs, from heroic gypsies to generous gondoliers who can sing, Van Booy writes eloquently about the difficult choices we make in order to maintain our humanity.

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Harper Collins

Published Date

ISBN 10

0061926027

ISBN 13

9780061926020

The Secret Lives of People In Love

Includes the award-winning collection Love Begins in Winter

By: Simon Van Booy

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The Secret Lives of People In Love

Includes the award-winning collection Love Begins in Winter

By: Simon Van Booy

Since the publication of his critically acclaimed debut collection The Secret Lives of People in Love, Simon Van Booy has been hailed as one of the most exciting and talented short-story writers in Anglo-American fiction. This magnificent collection brings together twenty-four stories by a writer of unparalleled lyricism, generosity and emotional power. Set in a range of locations, from Cornwall, Wales, and New York to Paris and Rome, these stark and beautiful stories are a perfect synthesis of intensity and atmosphere. Love, loss, isolation and the power of memory are Van Booy's themes, and in spare, economical prose he writes about the difficult choices we make in order to retain our humanity, and about the redemptive power of love in a violent world.

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Page Count

386

Publisher

Simon and Schuster

Published Date

ISBN 10

178074594X

ISBN 13

9781780745947

Tales of Accidental Genius

Stories

By: Simon Van Booy

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Tales of Accidental Genius

Stories

By: Simon Van Booy

“She believed it was a gift to never truly know the self. We are not who we think we are, nor how others see us. Long before death, we die a thousand times at the hands of a definition.” A master storyteller’s vision reawakens us to the human experience in this diverse, haunting, and unexpectedly humorous new collection of short fiction from Simon Van Booy—his first since Love Begins in Winter, winner of the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award. In his first book of short stories since Love Begins in Winter, for which he won the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award), bestselling author Simon Van Booy offers a collection of stories highlighting how human genius can emerge through acts of compassion. Through characters including an eccentric film director, an aging Cockney bodyguard, the teenage child of Nigerian immigrants, a divorced amateur magician from New Jersey, and a Beijing street vendor who becomes an overnight billionaire, Tales of Accidental Genius contemplates individuals from different cultures, races—rich and poor, young and old—and reveals how faith and yearning for connection helps us all transcend darkness of fear and misfortune.

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Page Count

236

Publisher

HarperCollins

Published Date

ISBN 10

0062408984

ISBN 13

9780062408983

Love Begins in Winter

Five Stories

By: Simon Van Booy

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Love Begins in Winter

Five Stories

By: Simon Van Booy

On the verge of giving up—anchored to dreams that never came true and to people who have long since disappeared from their lives—Van Booy's characters walk the streets of these stark and beautiful stories until chance meetings with strangers force them to face responsibility for lives they thought had continued on without them.

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Harper Collins

Published Date

ISBN 10

0061925861

ISBN 13

9780061925863

Everything Beautiful Began After

A Novel

By: Simon Van Booy

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Everything Beautiful Began After

A Novel

By: Simon Van Booy

“Apowerful meditation on the undying nature of love and the often cruel beauty ofone’s own fate. This is a novel you simply must read!” —Andre Dubus III, New York Times bestselling author of Townie From Simon Van Booy, the award-winning author of Love Begins in Winter and The Secret Lives of People in Love, comes a debut novel of longing and discovery amidst the ruins of Athens. With echoes of Nicole Krauss’s The History of Love and Charles Baxter’s The Feast of Love, Van Booy’s resonant tale of three isolated, disaffected adults discovering one another in Greece is the compelling product of an inquisitive, visionary talent. In the words of Robert Olen Butler, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain, “Simon Van Booy knows a great deal about the complex longings of the human heart.”

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Page Count

420

Publisher

Harper Collins

Published Date

ISBN 10

0062079492

ISBN 13

9780062079497

The City of Windy Trees

By: Simon Van Booy

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The City of Windy Trees

By: Simon Van Booy

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Harper Collins

Published Date

ISBN 10

0061926701

ISBN 13

9780061926709

Sipsworth

By: Simon Van Booy

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Sipsworth

By: Simon Van Booy

Loaded with charm, resilience, and the deep desire for connection that all mammals share. I loved it' Ann Patchett 'Utterly charming and beautifully written, Sipsworth is a tender tale about loss, loneliness and the healing power of connection that you won't want to put down' Mike Gayle ' Utterly charming and heartwarming' Ruth Hogan, The Keeper of Lost Things 'Beautiful and enchanting' Washington Post Following the deaths of her husband and son, Helen Cartwright returns from sixty years in Australia to the English village of her childhood. Her only wish is to die quickly and without fuss. Helen retreats into her home on Westminster Crescent, becoming a creature of routine and habit. Then, one cold autumn night, a chance encounter with an abandoned pet mouse on the street outside her house sets Helen on a surprising journey of friendship, and a way back into life itself.

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Page Count

198

Publisher

Bedford Square Publishers

Published Date

ISBN 10

1835010881

ISBN 13

9781835010884

The Presence of Absence

By: Simon Van Booy

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The Presence of Absence

By: Simon Van Booy

As a writer lies dying, he has one last story to tell: a tale of faith and devotion, a meditation on what lies beyond this life, and a prayer of gratitude that may lead to rebirth. This is Simon Van Booy at his visionary best. "Language is a map leading to a place not on the map," announces a young writer lying in a hospital bed at the beginning of The Presence of Absence. As he contemplates his impending physical disappearance and the impact on his beloved wife, he realizes, "Life doesn't start when you're born . . . it begins when you commit yourself to the eventual devastating loss that results from connecting to another person." Infused with poetic clarity and graced with humor, Simon Van Booy's innovative novella asks the reader to find beauty-even gratitude-in the cycle of birth and death. Stripped of artifice, The Presence of Absence is a meditation between the writer and the reader, an imaginative work that challenges the deceit of written words and explores our strongest emotions. Simon Van Booy is not only a master storyteller but a writer whose fiction is rich with philosophical insights into things both mapped and undiscovered. The Presence of Absence parts the darkness to reveal what has been just out of sight all along"--

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Page Count

184

Published Date

ISBN 10

1567927440

ISBN 13

9781567927443

Night Came with Many Stars

By: Simon Van Booy

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Night Came with Many Stars

By: Simon Van Booy

In rural Kentucky, back in 1933, Carol's daddy lost his 13-year-old daughter in a game of cards. Award-winning author Simon Van

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248

Published Date

ISBN 10

1567927580

ISBN 13

9781567927580

Everything Beautiful Began After

By: Simon Van Booy

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Everything Beautiful Began After

By: Simon Van Booy

Simon Van Booy, winner of the prestigious Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, brings his gift for poetic dialogue and sumptuous imagery to thisdebut novel of longing and discovery amidst the ruins of Ancient Greece. Rebecca is young, lost and beautiful. A gifted artist, she seeks solace and inspiration in the Mediterranean heat of Athens – trying to understand who she is and how she can love without fear. George has come to Athens to learn ancient languages after growing up in New England boarding schools and Ivy League colleges. He has no close relationships with anyone and spends his days hunched over books or in a drunken stupor. And then there is Henry, an accomplished young Welsh archaeologist who spends his days devotedly uncovering the city’s past as a way to escape his own – a past that holds a secret that not even his doting parents can talk about. As these three lost and lonely souls wander the city, a series of chance encounters sets off events that will forever define them, in this powerful portrait of friendship and young love.

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Page Count

368

Publisher

Oneworld Publications

Published Date

ISBN 10

1780743785

ISBN 13

9781780743783

The Sadness of Beautiful Things

Stories

By: Simon Van Booy

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The Sadness of Beautiful Things

Stories

By: Simon Van Booy

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Page Count

210

Publisher

Penguin

Published Date

ISBN 10

0143133047

ISBN 13

9780143133049

Night Came with Many Stars

A Novel

By: Simon Van Booy

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Night Came with Many Stars

A Novel

By: Simon Van Booy

In rural Kentucky, back in 1933, Carol's daddy lost his 13-year-old daughter in a game of cards. Award-winning author Simon Van Booy's spellbinding novel spans decades as he tells the story of Carol and the people in her life. Incidents intersect and lives unexpectedly change course in this masterfully interwoven story of chance and choice that leads home again to a night blessed with light. "What you give in this world," an old man tells his grandson, "will be given back to you." Those words illuminate the actions within this unforgettable novel and its connected characters. A young man survives two nearly fatal accidents. A Black family saves an orphaned white boy. A pregnant teenager is rescued by the side of the road. An autistic teenager is given his first job. Each incident grows in meaning and power over many decades as we see connections sometimes felt but not always apparent to the people themselves. "Everything was moving," observes Samuel (Carol's grandson) in the Kentucky woods. "An invisible force that was everywhere, and made everything touch." Told by a master storyteller, Night Came with Many Stars is a rare novel that reveals how wondrous, mysterious, and magically connected life can be-the light Van Booy creates in this novel illuminates our own lives"--

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248

Published Date

ISBN 10

1567927041

ISBN 13

9781567927047

Gertie Milk and the Great Keeper Rescue

By: Simon Van Booy

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Gertie Milk and the Great Keeper Rescue

By: Simon Van Booy

Ever since Gertie Milk arrived on the mysterious island of Skuldark, she's felt like something was missing. According to Kolt, her mentor and fellow Keeper of Lost Things, the island used to be filled with other Keepers. But now Gertie and Kolt are the only two people left (or two and a half, if you count Robot Rabbit Boy, their bumbling but lovable Series 7 Artificial Intelligence Forever Friend) who can return misplaced items throughout time. So when Gertie learns that the missing Keepers have been imprisoned by the Losers, their very evil adversaries, she knows she must make it her mission to rescue the kidnapped Keepers and return them to Skuldark. But that proves more difficult than she'd imagined, since her time-travel missions don't seem to be taking her anywhere near the missing Keepers. And it doesn't help that the Losers have an evil master plan worse than their last evil master plan, and this time the entire future of the universe is at stake. Fueled by more than a few delicious cakes and plenty of Skuldarkian seawater, Gertie, Kolt, and Robot Rabbit Boy must travel through time (and space!) to save their island home and rescue the Keepers who've been lost to history before the Losers manage to capture them all.

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Page Count

354

Publisher

Razorbill

Published Date

ISBN 10

0448494612

ISBN 13

9780448494616

Gertie Milk and the Keeper of Lost Things

By: Simon Van Booy

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Gertie Milk and the Keeper of Lost Things

By: Simon Van Booy

Award-winning author Simon Van Booy introduces readers to a magical, whimsical world, perfect for fans of Circus Mirandus and Serafina and the Black Cloak. When twelve-year-old Gertie Milk washes up on the island of Skuldark, she finds that all of her memories are gone. Home to helpful Slug Lamps, delicious moonberries, and a ferocious Guard Worm, the island is full of oddities, including a cozy cottage containing artifacts from every corner of history. It is there that Gertie discovers she has been chosen as the next Keeper of Lost Things, tasked with the mission of returning objects to history’s most important figures right when they need them most. With the help of a time machine disguised as a vintage sports car and the guidance of her fellow Keeper, Kolt, Gertie dodges an elephant army in ancient Alexandria, crashes a 1920s flapper party, and battles a ruthless Zhou Dynasty king. But soon, Gertie encounters an enemy that threatens everything the Keepers stand for: The Losers, villains who don't want to keep order but destroy it. Now, Gertie must uncover the truth of her own past if she wants to stop the Losers and set history back in place.

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Page Count

258

Publisher

Penguin

Published Date

ISBN 10

0448494604

ISBN 13

9780448494609

Save as Many as You Ruin

A short story from The Secret Lives of People in Love

By: Simon Van Booy

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Save as Many as You Ruin

A short story from The Secret Lives of People in Love

By: Simon Van Booy

The Secret Lives of People in Love is the first short story collection by award-winning writer Simon Van Booy. These stories, set in Kentucky, New York, Paris, Rome, and Greece, are a perfect synthesis of intensity and atmosphere. Love, loss, human contact, and isolation are Van Booy's themes. In radiant prose he writes about the difficult choices we make in order to retain our humanity and about the redemptive power of love in a violent world. Included in this updated P.S. edition is the new story "The Mute Ventriloquist.

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