Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette

Author	Honoré de Balzac
ISBN	0375759077

Poor, plain spinster Bette is compelled to survive on the condescending patronage of her socially superior relatives in Paris: her beautiful, saintly cousin Adeline, the philandering Baron Hulot and their daughter Hortense. Already deeply resentful of their wealth, when Bette learns that the...

Author	Antonia Fraser
ISBN	0140132937

In a sweeping narrative, Fraser traces the cultural, familial and political roots of each of Henry's queens, pushes aside the stereotypes that have long defined them, and illuminates the complex character of each. The result is a superb work of history through which these six women become as memorable...

Author	Alison Weir
ISBN	0345434870

In this beautifully written biography, Alison Weir paints a vibrant portrait of a truly exceptional woman and provides new insights into her intimate world.

Renowned in her time for being the most beautiful woman in Europe, the wife of two kings and mother of three, Eleanor of Aquitaine was...

Author	Joseph Roth
ISBN	1585674478

Still bearing the scars from gulag experiences, a freed POW traverses Russia to arrive at the Polish town of Lodz. In its massive Hotel Savoy, he meets there a surreal cast of characters, each eagerly awaiting the return from America of a rich man named Bloomfield. Like Europe itself in 1932, the hotel...

Author	Ursula Hegi
ISBN	0743255992

The bestselling author of Stones from the River delivers her most ambitious and dramatic novel yet -- the unforgettable story of an endearing, but also flawed, Italian American family. In December 1953 Anthony Amedeo's world is nested in his Bronx neighborhood, his parents' Studebaker, the Paradise...

Author	Tim Guest
ISBN	1862077207

At the age of six, Tim Guest was taken by his mother to a commune modeled on the teachings of the notorious Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. The Bhagwan preached an eclectic doctrine of Eastern mysticism, chaotic therapy, and sexual freedom, and enjoyed inhaling laughing gas, preaching from a dentist's...

Author	Katharine Butler Hathaway
ISBN	1558612394

The Little Locksmith, Katharine Butler Hathaway's luminous memoir of disability, faith, and transformation, is a critically acclaimed but largely forgotten literary classic brought back into print for the first time in thirty years. The Little Locksmith begins in 1895 when a specialist straps...

Author

Gore Vidal

Like his National Book Award—winning United States, Gore Vidal’s scintillating ninth collection, The Last Empire, affirms his reputation as our most provocative critic and observer of the modern American scene. In the essays collected here, Vidal brings his keen intellect, experience, and...

Author	Colette
ISBN	0345300564

Claudine is a head strong, clever and extremely mischievous schoolgirl. Along with her friends the lanky Anais, the cheerful Marie and the prim Joubert twins Claudine wreaks havoc on her small school. Always clever, witty and charming Claudine is more than a match for her formidable headmistress...

Author

Colette

Reading Colette's short novel Chéri, felt like munching on a box of fancy Belgian truffles, and in this case washed down with a bottle of fine vintage French wine, everything is all very French and all very luxurious. On it's first publication in 1920 both Marcel Proust and André Gide deemed it as a masterpiece,...

Author	Virginia Holman
ISBN	0743255496

A startling memoir of a daughter's harrowing sojourn in the prison of her mother's mind and a moving portrait of a young woman defined by her mother's illness -- until at last she rekindles a family love that had lost its way.

"1974 was a bad year to go crazy," Virginia Holman writes in this astonishing,...

Author	Greg Critser
ISBN	0141015403

In this astonishing expose, journalist Greg Critser looks beyond the sensational headlines to reveal why nearly 60 percent of Americans are now overweight. Critser's sharp-eyed reportage and sharp-tongued analysis make for a disarmingly funny and truly alarming book. Critser investigates the...

Author	Tony Vigorito
ISBN	0156031221

"Just a Couple of Days may be the most unusual, the most original novel I have ever read." —TOM ROBBINS

"A lyrical, thoughtful, viral meme of a book. Read it!"
—CHRISTOPHER MOORE

Join cult favorite Tony Vigorito in his award-winning underground hit chronicling the party...

Author	Lisa Tucker
ISBN	0743497007

Sure, we were a small family, but it wasn't lonely. We had the endless stream of my sister's customers and, of course, the music. Every day, all day, our stereo would play and Mary Beth would talk about the lyrics, what they really meant.
Leeann lives with her beautiful older sister -- the world's first...

Author	Amy Kelly
ISBN	0674242548

The story of that amazingly influential and still somewhat mysterious woman, Eleanor of Aquitaine, has the dramatic interest of a novel. She was at the very center of the rich culture and clashing politics of the twelfth century. Richest marriage prize of the Middle Ages, she was Queen of France as the...