Curious Attractions: Essays on Fiction Writing is a book about what makes fiction work. In nine entertaining and instructive essays, novelist and master teacher Debra Spark pursues key questions that face both aspiring and accomplished writers, including: How does a writer find inspiration? What makes a story's closing line resonate? How can a writer "get" style? Where should an author "stand" in relation to his or her characters?While the book will have immediate appeal f...

How does art mirror and shape our lives? Can it transcend the boundaries of time, wealth, and circumstance? Debra Spark—whose previous work the Washington Post described as "richly imaginative" and "real world magic"—explores these themes in her new novel Discipline. With a trio of important paintings missing, the book weaves together three narratives that span almost a century. From an inhumane boarding school in Maine in the late 1970s to a contemporary Boston art appra...

For as long Daniella has been married to Joel, they’ve received phone calls at odd hours, and late at night. Daniella knows the caller as Liesel, Joel’s first wife, a woman whose sudden departure devastated her husband. After years of disruptive, long-distance phone calls, Liesel rings to tell Joel she’s letting Idzia, the seventeen-year-old daughter he has never met, visit for the summer. Daniella and Joel prepare for Idzia’s arrival, but when Joel goes to pick her up from the airport, Id...

“More local color than a steamed lobster wearing wild blueberry bracelets, along with a mess of wistful nostalgia for any reader raised in Maine or New England.” —Portland Press HeraldNearly 70 renowned New England writers gather round the table to talk food and how it sustains us—mind, body, and soulAn award-winning collection of essays by internationally recognized and beloved foodies, Breaking Bread celebrates local foo...

Good for the Jews is a smart, funny, sexy novel set in Madison, Wisconsin, during the Bush administration. Part mystery and part stranger-comes-to town story, Good for the Jews is loosely based on the biblical book of Esther. Like Esther, Debra Spark's characters deal with anti-Semitism and the way that powerful men—and the women who love them—negotiate bureaucracies.At the core of the story of right and wrong are young, attractive Ellen Hirschorn and her older co...

David Sedaris tells all in a book that is, literally, a lifetime in the making.For forty years, David Sedaris has kept a diary in which he records everything that captures his attention-overheard comments, salacious gossip, soap opera plot twists, secrets confided by total strangers. These observations are the source code for his finest work, and through them he has honed his cunning, surprising sentences.Now, Sedaris shares his private writings with the wo...

David Sedaris returns with his most deeply personal and darkly hilarious book.If you've ever laughed your way through David Sedaris's cheerfully misanthropic stories, you might think you know what you're getting with Calypso. You'd be wrong.When he buys a beach house on the Carolina coast, Sedaris envisions long, relaxing vacations spent playing board games and lounging in the sun with those he loves most. And life at the Sea Section, as he names t...

Millions of people fantasize about leaving their old lives behind, enrolling in cooking school, and training to become a chef. But for those who make the decision, the difference between the dream and reality can be gigantic—especially at the top cooking school in the country. For the first time in the Culinary Institute of America’s history, a book will give readers the firsthand experience of being a full-time student facing all of the challenges of the legendary course in its entirety.

Three hilarious books in one from the #1 New York Times–bestselling author on marriage, motherhood, and the absurdities of suburban life.If Life Is a Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing in the Pits? is Erma Bombeck's timelessly witty look at the hidden side of married life.Motherhood captures one of the toughest jobs on earth with humor and heart.The Grass Is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank is Bombeck's take on th...

When Top Chef judge Gail Simmons first graduated from college, she felt hopelessly lost. All her friends were going to graduate school, business school, law school . . . but what was she going to do? Fortunately, a family friend gave her some invaluable advice-make a list of what you love to do, and let that be your guide. Gail wrote down four words:Eat. Write. Travel. Cook.Little did she know, those four words would become the basis for a career as a professional ...

A specially priced box set of the first two Jeff Resnick Mysteries by New York Times bestseling author L.L. BartlettMURDER ON THE MINDJeff Resnick hardly knew his well-heeled half-brother. But after suffering a fractured skull in a vicious mugging, he reluctantly accepts the fact that he has a long and brutal recovery to face—and his closest of kin can provide him with the time and place to do it.Now, Jeff is haunted by unexplained visions of a heinous crime—a banker...

It was a dream come true for Connie to marry a farmer and have her little house on the prairie. Being a city girl, she could only imagine how peaceful country life would be. But no sooner than the wedding bells stopped ringing, did the alarms of fear begin to toll. Why did life suddenly seem so brutal? Was this mans anger and violent behavior because of something she did? Why did it take her so many years to escape? Had she failed her fourteen children by not leaving sooner? Read this woma...