The classic novel about an ordinary man’s ascent into wealthy Boston circles, and its effect on him and his family.Thanks to hard work and good fortune, Silas Lapham succeeds financially in the paint business. But money and class are not the same thing, and the Laphams struggle to feel they truly fit in amid New England’s social aristocracy. When they move into a luxurious home in the elite Back Bay neighborhood, they soon have a young patrician in their lives, a potential suitor for their daughter. But Tom Corey’s intentions are not quite what they think, and after much upheaval, the Laphams are left to contemplate how their change in status has altered their lives forevermore, in this landmark of nineteenth-century American literature.

“The popularity of [Dog Songs] feels as inevitable and welcome as a wagging tail upon homecoming.” —The Boston Globe Mary Oliver’s Dog Songs is a celebration of the special bond between human and dog, as understood through the poet’s relationships to the canines that have accompanied her daily walks, warmed her home, and inspired her work. Oliver’s poems begin in the small everyday moments familiar to all dog lovers, but through her extraordinary vision, these observations become higher meditations on the world and our place in it.Dog Songs includes visits with old friends, like Oliver’s beloved Percy, and introduces still others in poems of love and laughter, heartbreak and grief. Throughout, the many dogs of Oliver’s life merge as fellow travelers and as guides, uniquely able to open our eyes to the lessons of the moment and the joys of nature and connection.

An Englishwoman at a crossroads in her life takes an unexpected path in this “teasingly clever new novel” by the author of The Millstone (Publisher Weekly).Candida Wilton—a woman recently betrayed, rejected, divorced, and alienated from her three grown daughters—moves from a beautiful Georgian house in lovely Suffolk to a two-room walk-up flat in a run-down building in central London. The move, however, is not a financial necessity. She herself wonders if she’s putting herself through a survival test…or perhaps a punishment. How will Candida adjust to this shabby, menacing, but curiously appealing city? What can happen, at her age, to change her life? There is a relationship with a computer to which she now confides her past and her present. An adult-ed class on Virgil offers friendships of sorts with other women—widows, divorced, never married, women straddled between generations. And then comes Candida's surprise inheritance, and the surprising things she chooses to do with it…

From the Nobel Prize-winning author comes the story of Jacques Cormery, a boy who lived a life much like his own, with the sights, sounds and textures of a childhood steeped in poverty and a father's death yet redeemed by the beauty of Algeria and the boy's attachment to his mother."A work of genius." —The New Yorker Published thirty-five years after its discovery amid the wreckage of the car accident that killed Camus, The First Man is the brilliant consummation of the life and work of one of the 20th century's greatest novelists. Translated from the French by David Hapgood."The First Man is perhaps the most honest book Camus ever wrote, and the most sensual...Camus is...writing at the depth of his powers...It is "Fascinating...The First Man helps put all of Camus's work into a clearer perspective and brings into relief what separates him from the more militant literary personalities of his day...Camus's voice has never been more personal." —The New York Times Book Review

A novel exploring war in an alternate post–9/11 America “is an undoubted pleasure to read. Auster really does possess the wand of the enchanter” (Michael Dirda, The New York Review of Books)From Paul Auster, a “literary original” (Wall Street Journal) comes a novel that forces us to confront the blackness of night even as it celebrates the existence of ordinary joys in a world capable of the most grotesque violence.Seventy-two-year-old August Brill is recovering from a car accident at his daughter’s house in Vermont. When sleep refuses to come, he lies in bed and tells himself stories, struggling to push back thoughts about things he would prefer to forget: his wife’s recent death and the horrific murder of his granddaughter’s boyfriend, Titus. The retired book critic imagines a parallel world in which America is not at war with Iraq but with itself. In this other America the twin towers did not fall and the 2000 election results led to secession, as state after state pulled away from the union and a bloody civil war ensued.As the night progresses, Brill’s story grows increasingly intense, and what he is desperately trying to avoid insists on being told.A Washington Post Best Book of the Year“Absorbing.” —The New Yorker“Probably Auster’s best novel.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review“Astute and mesmerizing.” —Booklist, starred review“Auster’s book leaves one with a depth of feeling much larger than might be expected from such a small and concise work of art.” —San Francisco Chronicle“[Auster is] a master of voice, an avuncular confidence man who can spin dark stories out of air.” —Entertainment Weekly