Other books that might interest you

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  A Pocket For Biscuits

  Dominic Ryan

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  A little book with a surprisingly big heart. 
  A kidnapped princess and a killer porter, a naked artist and a neonatal astronaut . . . The lives of strangers intertwine, moments become lifetimes, in their unconscious quest to let go of grief and hold on to the precious. 
  Beautifully imagined, A Pocket For Biscuits seeks a deeper understanding of ourselves in the every day, inspiring a gentle compassion for the disconnected and voiceless.  
  This is a rare gem that sparkles with courage and hope, subtly lit by incidental kinships you’ll treasure for a lifetime.

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  The Mirror of the Sea

  Joseph Conrad

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  "Here speaks the man of masts and sails, to whom the sea is not a navigable element, but an intimate companion. The length of passages, the growing sense of solitude, the close dependence upon the very forces that, friendly to-day, without changing their nature, by the mere putting forth of their might, become dangerous to-morrow, make for that sense of fellowship which modern seamen, good men as they are, cannot hope to know." In this volume of essays, more than in any other single work, we get to see clearly just what Joseph Conrad's years working on sail-powered ships meant to him — and they certainly meant a great deal to him, for all Conrad's subsequent fretting that he might be typed as "only" a writer of the sea. This collection is particularly renowned for the lengthy episode titled "The Tremolino", where Conrad gives us, in the character of the real-world Dominic, the model of his fictional Nostromo, as well as an account of personalities and gun-running activities he would later depict in "The Arrow of Gold".

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  Portraits of a Mother - A...

  Shusaku Endo, Carly Phillips

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  Shusaku Endo (1923-1996), widely considered one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century, is known for his historical novels, which masterfully probe the encounters between the cultures and religions of East and West from a Japanese Catholic perspective. A salient and curious theme in his work is the unique image of a maternal God, and a concomitant sense of loss and longing for maternal love. 
   
   
   
  Confronting the Shadows, the semiautobiographical novella discovered at the Endo Museum in Nagasaki in 2020, is the author's most personal work and constitutes the interpretive key to his entire oeuvre. Translated into English here for the first time, it tells the story of Suguro, an aspiring novelist who was separated from his mother after his parents' divorce. Desperate to understand the woman his mother was, he sets out to retrace her footsteps, only to find himself face to face with his own demons. Accompanying the novella are five stories; exploring complex truths in uncomplicated prose, each tale discloses the intricacies of the sacred feminine and the apprehensions and joys of familial love. Endo once again beams bright light on the hidden corners of the human heart in this intimate and remarkable new collection.

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  And I Do Not Forgive You -...

  Anonymous

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  Feminism fuels fantasy in this genre-busting collection by "master of the fantastic" (Roxane Gay) Amber Sparks. 
   
   
   
  Exciting fans of such writers as Kelly Link, Karen Russell, and Carmen Maria Machado with prose that shimmers and stings, Amber Sparks holds a singular role in the canon of the weird. Now, she reaches new, uncanny heights with And I Do Not Forgive You. In "Mildly Happy, With Moments of Joy," a friend is ghosted by a simple text message; in "Everyone's a Winner at Meadow Park," a teen precariously coming of age in a trailer park befriends an actual ghost. At once humorous and unapologetically fierce, these stories shine an interrogating light on the adage that "history likes to lie about women"—as the subjects of "A Short and Speculative History of Lavoisier's Wife" and "You Won't Believe What Really Happened to the Sabine Women" (it's true, you won't) will attest. Blending fairy tales and myths with apocalyptic technologies, all tethered intricately by shades of rage, And I Do Not Forgive You offers a mosaic of an all-too-real world that fails to listen to its silenced goddesses.

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  Exchanges: Fictions...

  Geoffrey Little

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  Geoffrey Little's edgy hilarity and rare sensitivity fuse across these sixteen stories. First recorded as immersive conversational podcasts, the tales here include a mandatory corporate retirement party, class with an eccentric yoga instructor, an overconfident podcaster, and an icky food truck love triangle. 
  Whether pleasantly hapless or bitterly exacting, the conversations here (and each are only dialogue) portray a range of humanity, including a few non-humans. Chat is still where it's at, even in the fast lane of the 21st century.

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  Brooksmith

  Henry James

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  "Brooksmith," a short story written by Henry James in 1891, tells the tale of Brooksmith, a retired diplomat's butler the 'narrator' had once known. Brooksmith was responsible for the preservation of the atmosphere the diplomat's salon where the guests enjoyed a high level of intellectual conversation. Brooksmith was regarded by the narrator as "the artist" who insured that the company at each gathering was the optimum number and mix of personalities to provide the highest level of conversation possible. 
   
  This was partially of benefit to Brooksmith himself, who would linger in the room on some pretext or other in order to eavesdrop on the exchanges. The diplomat was well aware of this, and alluded to it on occasion with dryly humorous remarks. With the diplomat's death, Brooksmith loses his vocation, which to him was almost a calling. At the end of the story, the narrator reveals that Brooksmith, lonely and dispirited, works a few odd jobs but falls into poverty and illness, and eventually disappears.

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