Stewart O'Nan

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

Minnesota

Set in a working-class town on the Rhode Island coast, O'Nan's latest is a crushing, beautifully written, and profoundly compelling novel about sisters, mothers, and daughters, and the terrible things love makes us do. In the first line of Ocean State, we learn that a high school student was murdered, and we find out who did it. The story that unfolds from there with incredible momentum is thus one of the build-up to and fall-out from the murder, told through the alternating perspectives of the four women at its heart. Angel, the murderer, Carol, her mother, and Birdy, the victim, all come alive on the page as they converge in a climax both tragic and inevitable. Watching over it all is the retrospective testimony of Angel's younger sister Marie, who reflects on that doomed autumn of 2009 with all the wisdom of hindsight. Angel and Birdy love the same teenage boy, frantically and single mindedly, and are compelled by the intensity of their feelings to extremes neither could have anticipated. O'Nan's expert hand paints a fully realized portrait of these women, but also weaves a compelling and heartbreaking story of working-class life in Ashaway, Rhode Island. Propulsive, moving, and deeply rendered, Ocean State is a masterful novel by one of our greatest storytellers.

Ocean State

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Jill Ciment

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

A Novel

The place: central Florida. The situation: a sensational murder trial involving a rich, white teenage girl--a twin--on trial for the horrific murder of her toddler brother, and the sequestered jury deciding her fate. . Two of the jurors sequestered (she, Juror C-2; he, F-17), holed up at the Econo-Lodge off I-75. As the shocking and numbing details of the crime and its surrounding facts are revealed during a string of days and seemingly endless court hours, the nights, playing out in a series of court-financed meals Hannah and Graham fall into a furtive affair, keeping their oath, as jurors, never to discuss the trial. During deliberations the lovers learn they are on opposing sides of the case and realize that their fellow jurors are wise to their affair. After the trial's end, as Hannah returns home to her much older, now, suddenly, frail husband (they married when she was 24; he, 58) an exploding media fury involving the case catches them all up in a frenzy of public outrage at a jury that seems to have convicted the wrong twin, and a judge who has received an anonymous handwritten letter about a series of sexual encounters ("I feel it is my duty as a juror and a citizen to report that two of my fellow jurors had sexual contact on more than seven occasions during our nights at the motel..."), calling into question their respective verdicts, and announcing she is releasing the jurors' names to the media. Hannah's "one last dalliance before she is too old" takes on profoundly personal and moral consequences, as the novel moves to its affecting, powerful and surprising conclusion.

The Body in Question

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Mary Sheedy Kurcinka

Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

The Essential Companion Workbook To The National Bestseller Raising Your Spirited Child, In this companion workbook, Mary Sheedy Kurcinka brings readers into her world-famous workshops, where she offers parents and educators insights, emotional support and proven strategies for dealing with spirited children. The key word that distinguishes spirited children from other children is "more" -- more intense, more persistent, more sensitive and more uncomfortable with change. Through exercises, observations and dialogue from actual groups, Kurcinka helps readers learn to identify the triggers that lead to tantrums and challenging behaviors. Included are clues to help you identify the little things that can make or break a day tips for profiling your child's temperament and your own cues that indicate intensity is rising successful strategies for reducing and eliminating power struggles By combining the intuition and compassion gained from parenting a spirited child with the wisdom of an expert who has worked with thousands of families, Mary Sheedy Kurcinka helps parents and educators view their unique challenge with perseverance, flexibility, sensitivity, and, most of all, enjoyment.

Raising Your Spirited Child Workbook

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John Green

One month before graduating from his Central Florida high school, Quentin "Q" Jacobsen basks in the predictable boringness of his life until the beautiful and exciting Margo Roth Spiegelman, Q's neighbor and classmate, takes him on a midnight adventure and then mysteriously disappears. An ALA Best Book for Young Adults. Reprint.

Paper Towns

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Halldor Laxness

From the Nobel Prize-winning Icelandic author, a magnificent, epic novel--"funny, clever, sardonic and brilliant" (Annie Proulx)--at last available to contemporary American readers.

Set in the early twentieth century, Independent People recalls both Iceland's medieval epics and such classics as Sigrid Undset's Kristin Lavransdatter. If Bjartur of Summerhouses, the book's protagonist, is an ordinary sheep farmer, his flinty determination to achieve independence is genuinely heroic and, at the same time, terrifying and bleakly comic.

Having spent eighteen years in humiliating servitude, Bjartur wants nothing more than to raise his flocks unbeholden to any man. But Bjartur's spirited daughter wants to live unbeholden to him. What ensues is a battle of wills that is by turns harsh and touching, elemental in its emotional intensity and intimate in its homely detail. Vast in scope and deeply rewarding, Independent People is a masterpiece.

Independent People

Ross Campbell

Gary Chapman

Since 1992, Chapman's bestselling book "The Five Love Languages" has helped millions of couples develop stronger, more fulfilling relationships by teaching them to speak each others' love language. Now parents can discover their child's primary language and learn what they can do to effectively convey unconditional feelings of respect, affection, and commitment.

The 5 Love Languages of Children

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Ashley C. Ford

A Memoir

“Sure to be one of the best memoirs of 2021.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review “So clear, sharp, and smooth that the reader sees, in vivid focus, Ford’s complicated childhood, brilliant mind, and golden heart. Ford is a writer for the ages, and Somebody’s Daughter will be a book of the year.” —Glennon Doyle, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Untamed “Ford’s wrenchingly brilliant memoir is truly a classic in the making. The writing is so richly observed and so suffused with love and yearning that I kept forgetting to breathe while reading it.” —John Green, #1 New York Times bestselling author One of the most prominent voices of her generation debuts with an extraordinarily powerful memoir: the story of a childhood defined by the looming absence of her incarcerated father. Through poverty, adolescence, and a fraught relationship with her mother, Ashley Ford wishes she could turn to her father for hope and encouragement. There are just a few problems: he’s in prison, and she doesn’t know what he did to end up there. She doesn’t know how to deal with the incessant worries that keep her up at night, or how to handle the changes in her body that draw unwanted attention from men. In her search for unconditional love, Ashley begins dating a boy her mother hates. When the relationship turns sour, he assaults her. Still reeling from the rape, which she keeps secret from her family, Ashley desperately searches for meaning in the chaos. Then, her grandmother reveals the truth about her father’s incarceration . . . and Ashley’s entire world is turned upside down. Somebody’s Daughter steps into the world of growing up a poor, Black girl in Indiana with a family fragmented by incarceration, exploring how isolating and complex such a childhood can be. As Ashley battles her body and her environment, she embarks on a powerful journey to find the threads between who she is and what she was born into, and the complicated familial love that often binds them.

Somebody's Daughter

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Kim John Payne

Lisa M. Ross

Using the Extraordinary Power of Less to Raise Calmer, Happier, and More Secure Kids

Outlines a four-step program for decluttering a home, increasing a child's sense of security, scheduling down time, and instilling calmness in the face of hectic environments.

Simplicity Parenting

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Lisa Sharon Harper

Walter Brueggemann

How Everything Wrong Can Be Made Right

"On these pages, the Garden of Eden meets the world we live in."
- Shane Claiborne, activist and author
 
God once declared everything in the world "very good."
Can you imagine it?

Through careful exploration of the biblical text, particularly the first three chapters of Genesis, Lisa Sharon Harper shows us what "very good" can look like today--in real time.
Shalom is what God declared. Shalom is what the Kingdom of God looks like. Shalom is when all people are treated equitably and have enough. It's when families are healed. It's when churches, schools, and public policies protect human dignity.
Shalom is when the image of God is recognized, protected, and cultivated in every single human. It is the vision God set forth in the Garden and the restoration God desires for every broken relationship. Shalom is the "very good" in the gospel.
Because despite our anxious minds, despite divisions, and despite threats of violence, God's vision remains: wholeness for a fragmented world. Peace for a hurting soul. Shalom.

The Very Good Gospel

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Suzanne Somers

Prudence Hall

The Natural Hormone Solution to Enjoy Perimenopause

Why Wait to Feel Good Again? If you're in your thirties or forties, your body is changing, and so are your moods, sleep, health, and weight. Tired of being at the mercy of your hormones? Armed with the knowledge in this book, you don't have to be. Perimenopause can be enjoyable if you know what to do. I'm Too Young for This! details how you can get your body and mind back on track, safely and without drugs, including: - How our bodies transition hormonally—from puberty through perimenopause. - The common complaints of perimenopause—and hidden factors that may keep you symptomatic. - What are the minor and major hormones, and the important role they play in feeling good and staying vibrant and healthy. - What to eat—including Perimenopausal Power Foods—as well as other lifestyle shifts that are critical to your successful transition. - Cutting-edge research that proves the safety and efficacy of bioidentical hormone replacement (BHRT). - The Symptom Solver: a state-of-the-art guide to immediate relief for your hormonal complaints. Plus, how to find the right doctor as well as get your most frequently asked questions answered by expert hormone specialists. Your life is about to change for the better. You can feel great, be vibrant, healthy, thin, and sexy! This book shows you how.

I'm Too Young for This!

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Paige Toon

In the spirit of Colleen Hoover and Josie Silver’s One Day in December, a heartbreaking story of star-crossed, fated love, and two people who are brought together and torn apart every five years until they must make a choice that’s bigger than their lives alone. A love stronger than distance. A fate determined by time. Nell and Van meet as children when their parents fall in love. They become best friends and each other’s whole world. Then tragedy strikes and Van is sent to the other side of the globe. Five years later, they find each other again. But they’re no longer children and the bond between them smolders into flames. New feelings surprise them both. They are destined, soulmates. Until an untimely discovery tears them apart again. For the next two decades, fate brings Nell and Van together every five years, even as life and circumstance divide them. They will have to make a choice, but it’s bigger than their lives alone. Is it bigger than their love?

Five Years from Now

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Beth O'Leary

"Three women who seemingly have nothing in common find that they're involved with the same man in this smart new rom-com by Beth O'Leary, bestselling author of The Flatshare. Siobhan is a quick-tempered life coach with way too much on her plate. Jane is a soft-spoken volunteer for the local charity shop with zero sense of self-worth. Miranda is a tree surgeon used to being treated as just one of the guys on the job. These three women are strangers who have only one thing in common: They've all been stood up on the same day, the very worst day to be stood up-Valentine's Day. And, unbeknownst to them, they've all been stood up by the same man. Once they've each forgiven him for standing them up, they let him back into their lives and are in serious danger of falling in love with a man who seems to have not just one or two but three women on the go.... Is there more to him than meets the eye? And will they each untangle the truth before they all get their hearts broken?"--

The No-Show

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Carley Fortune

A glorious and tantalizing new escape from #1 New York Times bestselling author Carley Fortune. This summer they’ll keep their promise. This summer they won't give into temptation. This summer will be different. Lucy is the tourist vacationing at a beach house on Prince Edward Island. Felix is the local who shows her a very good time. The only problem: Lucy doesn’t know he’s her best friend’s younger brother. Lucy and Felix’s chemistry is unreal, but the list of reasons why they need to stay away from each other is long, and they vow to never repeat that electric night again. It’s easier said than done. Each year, Lucy escapes to PEI for a big breath of coastal air, fresh oysters and crisp vinho verde with her best friend, Bridget. Every visit begins with a long walk on the beach, beneath soaring red cliffs and a golden sun. And every visit, Lucy promises herself she won’t wind up in Felix’s bed. Again. If Lucy can’t help being drawn to Felix, at least she’s always kept her heart out of it. When Bridget suddenly flees Toronto a week before her wedding, Lucy drops everything to follow her to the island. Her mission is to help Bridget through her crisis and resist the one man she’s never been able to. But Felix’s sparkling eyes and flirty quips have been replaced with something new, and Lucy’s beginning to wonder just how safe her heart truly is.

This Summer Will Be Different

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Jeannette Haien

"A quiet little stunner, written with the sure hand of an artist and the ear of a seasoned storyteller." --St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Jeannette Haien's award-winning first novel relates the seemingly simple tale of a parishioner confiding in her priest, but the tangled confession brings secrets to light that provoke a moral quandary for not only the clergyman, but the reader as well.

While fishing in an Irish salmon stream one rainy morning, Father Declan de Loughry ponders the recent deathbed confession of his parishioner Kevin Dennehy. It seems Dennehy and his wife, Enda, had been quietly living a lie for fifty years. Yet the gravity of their deception doesn't become clear to the good father until Enda shares the full tale of her suffering, finally confiding "the all of it."

Haien's intimate novel of conversations and dilemmas--perfect for readers of Paul Harding's Tinkers, Marilynne Robinson's Gilead, and Flannery O'Connor's Wise Blood--is "an elegantly written, compact and often subtle tale of morality and passion that gives voice to an age-old concern in a fresh way" hails the New York Times Book Review. This special edition includes an introduction by Ann Patchett.

The All of It

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Sigrid Nunez

WINNER OF THE 2018 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION SHORTLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL DUBLIN LITERARY AWARD NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "A beautiful book … a world of insight into death, grief, art, and love." —Wall Street Journal "A penetrating, moving meditation on loss, comfort, memory...Nunez has a wry, withering wit." —NPR "Dry, allusive and charming…the comedy here writes itself.” The New York Times A moving story of love, friendship, grief, healing, and the magical bond between a woman and her dog. When a woman unexpectedly loses her lifelong best friend and mentor, she finds herself burdened with the unwanted dog he has left behind. Her own battle against grief is intensified by the mute suffering of the dog, a huge Great Dane traumatized by the inexplicable disappearance of its master, and by the threat of eviction: dogs are prohibited in her apartment building. While others worry that grief has made her a victim of magical thinking, the woman refuses to be separated from the dog except for brief periods of time. Isolated from the rest of the world, increasingly obsessed with the dog's care, determined to read its mind and fathom its heart, she comes dangerously close to unraveling. But while troubles abound, rich and surprising rewards lie in store for both of them. Elegiac and searching, The Friend is both a meditation on loss and a celebration of human-canine devotion.

The Friend

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Kate Walbert

A "tense, taut, and thrilling" (Marie Claire) novel about a teenage girl, a predatory teacher, and a school's complicity from the highly acclaimed, bestselling National Book Award finalist and author of A Short History of Women--"riveting, terrifying, exactly the book for our times" (Ann Patchett).

They were on a lark, three teenaged girls speeding across the greens at night on a "borrowed" golf cart, drunk. The cart crashes and one of the girls lands violently in the rough, killed instantly. The driver, Jo, flees the hometown that has turned against her and enrolls at a prestigious boarding school. Her past weighs on her. She is responsible for the death of her best friend. She has tipped her parents' rocky marriage into demise. She is ready to begin again, far away from the accident.

"Devastatingly relevant" (Vogue) and "fueled by gorgeous writing" (NPR), His Favorites reveals the interior life of a young woman determined to navigate the treachery in a new world. Told from her perspective many years later, the story coolly describes a series of shattering events and a school that failed to protect her. "Before things turn treacherous, there's a moment when predation can feel dangerously like kindness...Walbert understands this...His Favorites begs to be read" (Time).

His Favorites

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Martin Riker

With "a voice as clear, sincere, and wry as any I've read in current American fiction" (Joshua Cohen), Martin Riker's poignant and startlingly original novel asks how to foster a brave mind in anxious times, following a newly jobless academic rehearsing a speech on John Maynard Keynes for a surprising audience

In a hotel room in the middle of the night, Abby, a young feminist economist, lies awake next to her sleeping husband and daughter. Anxious that she is grossly underprepared for a talk she is presenting tomorrow on optimism and John Maynard Keynes, she has resolved to practice by using an ancient rhetorical method of assigning parts of her speech to different rooms in her house and has brought along a comforting albeit imaginary companion to keep her on track--Keynes himself.

Yet as she wanders with increasing alarm through the rooms of her own consciousness, Abby finds herself straying from her prepared remarks on economic history, utopia, and Keynes's pragmatic optimism. A lapsed optimist herself, she has been struggling under the burden of supporting a family in an increasingly hostile America after being denied tenure at the university where she teaches. Confronting her own future at a time of global darkness, Abby undertakes a quest through her memories to ideas hidden in the corners of her mind--a piecemeal intellectual history from Cicero to Lewis Carroll to Queen Latifah--as she asks what a better world would look like if we told our stories with more honest and more hopeful imaginations.

With warm intellect, playful curiosity, and an infectious voice, Martin Riker acutely animates the novel of ideas with a beating heart and turns one woman's midnight crisis into the performance of a lifetime. 

The Guest Lecture

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Ruth Reichl

The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise

Author of Save Me the Plums Ruth Reichl’s iconic, bestselling memoir of her time as an undercover restaurant critic for The New York Times "Expansive and funny." —Entertainment Weekly Ruth Reichl, world-renowned food critic and former editor in chief of Gourmet magazine, knows a thing or two about food. She also knows that as the most important food critic in the country, you need to be anonymous when reviewing some of the most high-profile establishments in the biggest restaurant town in the world—a charge she took very seriously, taking on the guise of a series of eccentric personalities. In Garlic and Sapphires, Reichl reveals the comic absurdity, artifice, and excellence to be found in the sumptuously appointed stages of the epicurean world and gives us—along with some of her favorite recipes and reviews—her remarkable reflections on how one’s outer appearance can influence one’s inner character, expectations, and appetites, not to mention the quality of service one receives. “[A] wonderful book, which is funny—at times laugh-out-loud funny—and smart and wise.” —Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post

Garlic and Sapphires

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Elissa R. Sloan

Elissa R. Sloan, author of The Unraveling of Cassidy Holmes, returns with a sweeping drama about two A-list stars--a former star couple--as they cross each other's paths over and over again through the years, in a story that examines the work we have to do in order to grow into the people we want to become. Maiko Fox and Adrian Hightower were young, beautiful, in love...and famous. The latest model to grace the Valentina Posh runway show and the hottest new superhero actor were Hollywood's breakout couple. They were in every magazine, all over the most popular celebrity-blogs, and on countless E! News stories. They starred in a blockbuster film together, reaping box-office gold. Fans were at a fever pitch. No one could get enough of Madrian, the couple that printed money for the studios, for the paparazzi, for themselves. But then, their relationship crumbled. Years later, with Adrian topping the Hollywood A-list as a writer and director, dating the country's biggest pop star, and Maiko starring in movies for her celebrated producer-director husband, they live totally different lives. But they can never be too far apart. Madrian is still a box office draw, and the studios keep throwing them together. As the two grow more and more entangled again professionally, Maiko and Adrian have to reckon with themselves: are they happy with their current lives? Or have they grown to be better people when with each other?

Double Exposure

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Christopher Ingraham

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

Why We Traded the Commuting Life for a Little House on the Prairie

The hilarious, charming, and candid story of writer Christopher Ingraham’s decision to uproot his life and move his family to Red Lake Falls, Minnesota, population 1,400—the community he made famous as “the worst place to live in America” in a story he wrote for the Washington Post. In August 2015, Washington Post data reporter Christopher Ingraham was looking for story ideas when he stumbled upon a gold mine: a U.S. Department of Agriculture study—the Natural Amenities Index—a list of America’s more than 3,000 counties classified from ugliest to most scenic. In covering the rankings, he wrote a sentence that would change his life: “The absolute worst place to live in America is (drumroll please) . . . Red Lake County, Minn.” The story immediately went viral. Ingraham’s piece received hundreds of responses from angry but polite Red Lake Falls residents, including a local businessman who invited Ingraham to visit. Curious, Ingraham accepted the offer—and was pleasantly surprised and charmed by the warmth, humor, and hospitality these ordinary Midwest folks extended to a big city East Coast journalist who had insulted their home to millions of readers. The trip changed Ingraham and inspired a crazy idea. Living in one of the most expensive areas in the United States, he and his family were stretched financially—and running out of options. Crunching the numbers, Ingraham realized Red Lake County offered an opportunity they could not pass up. After careful planning, Chris, his wife Briana, and his young twin sons picked up their lives and moved from the nation’s busy, cosmopolitan capital to a tiny hamlet in rural Minnesota. It was the beginning of a chapter of incredible lifestyle changes and important life lessons. In Red Lake Falls, Ingraham meets people for whom politics are a passing conversation, not an obsession, experiences the intensity and power of small-town gossip, embarks on a futile quest to find a decent cup of coffee, and suffers through brutal winters with temperatures of thirty degrees below zero. But more than that, he discovers that statistics and numbers do not tell a complete story, whether in politics—witness the 2016 election results—or in life.

If You Lived Here You'd Be Home by Now

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Alexandra Paige

For fans of Beth O'Leary and Josie Silver, a heartwarming and romantic debut told over the course of one year in monthly weekend installments, about found family, new love, and the magic of London. Flowers have always been the best communicators. They've mastered falling over one another in the perfect way to announce exactly what they need: sunlight, water, space. They do not rush. They do not bloom before their time. They do not take without giving in return... They are nothing like the rest of London. Between trying to keep her north London flower shop, The Lotus, afloat and falling for a flatmate, Lucy Bernstein is going to have to rethink everything she knows about "creative arrangements." Unwillingly becoming one of eight flatmates in a quirky warehouse conversion would have been difficult enough without any romantic entanglements, but when Lucy lays eyes on Henry Baker, the traveling photographer who only comes home twelve weekends a year, she knows her hands will be full with more than just posies. As each weekend progresses, Lucy also finds herself unexpectedly falling for all her new flatmates, along with this bustling but ultimately sweeter home. Can Lucy learn from the flowers she tends to and bravely reach for all that she needs to bloom?

Weekends with You

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Dolly Alderton

"There is no writer quite like Dolly Alderton working today and very soon the world will know it." --Lisa Taddeo, author of #1 New York Times bestseller Three Women "Dolly Alderton has always been a sparkling Roman candle of talent. She is funny, smart, and explosively engaged in the wonders and weirdness of the world. But what makes this memoir more than mere entertainment is the mature and sophisticated evolution that Alderton describes in these pages. It's a beautifully told journey and a thoughtful, important book. I loved it." --Elizabeth Gilbert, New York Times bestselling author of Eat, Pray, Love and City of Girls The wildly funny, occasionally heartbreaking internationally bestselling memoir about growing up, growing older, and learning to navigate friendships, jobs, loss, and love along the ride When it comes to the trials and triumphs of becoming an adult, journalist and former Sunday Times columnist Dolly Alderton has seen and tried it all. In her memoir, she vividly recounts falling in love, finding a job, getting drunk, getting dumped, realizing that Ivan from the corner shop might just be the only reliable man in her life, and that absolutely no one can ever compare to her best girlfriends. Everything I Know About Love is about bad dates, good friends and--above all else-- realizing that you are enough. Glittering with wit and insight, heart and humor, Dolly Alderton's unforgettable debut weaves together personal stories, satirical observations, a series of lists, recipes, and other vignettes that will strike a chord of recognition with women of every age--making you want to pick up the phone and tell your best friends all about it. Like Bridget Jones' Diary but all true, Everything I Know About Love is about the struggles of early adulthood in all its terrifying and hopeful uncertainty.

Everything I Know about Love

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Rebecca Kauffman

For readers of Alice Munro, Elizabeth Strout, and Claire Lombardo, Chorus shepherds seven siblings through two life-altering events--their mother's untimely death, and a shocking teenage pregnancy--that ultimately follow them through their lives as individuals and as a family

The seven Shaw siblings have long been haunted by two early and profoundly consequential events. Told in turns from the early twentieth century through the 1950s, each sibling relays their own version of the memories that surround both their mother's mysterious death and the circumstances of one sister's scandalous teenage pregnancy. As they move into adulthood, the siblings assume new roles: caretaker to their aging father, addict, enabler, academic, decorated veteran, widow, and mothers and fathers to the next generation.

Entangled in a family knot, the Shaw siblings face divorce, drama, and death while haunted by a mother who was never truly there. Through this lens, they all seek not only to understand how her death shaped their family, but also to illuminate the insoluble nature of the many familial experiences we all encounter--the concept of home, the tenacity that is a family's love, and the unexpected ways through which healing can occur.

Chorus is a hopeful story of family, of loss and recovery, of complicated relationships forged between brothers and sisters as they move through life together, and of the unlikely forces that first drive them away and then ultimately back home.

Chorus

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Marie-Helene Bertino

A wise, tender novel about a woman who doesn't feel at home on Earth, by the acclaimed author of Parakeet. 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 reaches for warmth and light. As a child, she recognizes that she is different; she also 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. But at a precarious moment, a beloved friend urges Adina to share her messages with the world. Is there a chance she is not alone? A blazing novel of startling originality about the fragility and resilience of life in our universe, Marie-Helene Bertino’s Beautyland is a remarkable evocation of feeling in exile at home and introduces a gentle, unforgettable alien for our times.

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