Showing results for "Small Town" in Literary Fiction

A House for Mr. Biswas, by Nobel and Booker Prize-winning author V. S. Naipaul, is a powerful novel about one man's struggle for identity and belonging. Born into poverty, then trapped in the shackles of charity and gratitude, Mr. Biswas longs for a house he can call his own. He loathes his wife and her wealthy family, upon whom he is dependent. Finding himself a mere accessory on their estate, his constant rebellion is motivated by the one thing that can symbolize his independence.

In Redu, einem kleinen Bücherdorf inmitten der belgischen Ardennen, wird die Zeit als Freund und nicht als Gegner empfunden: Umgeben von ausgedehnten Wäldern, rauschenden Flüssen und steilen Anhöhen gibt es hier lediglich einen Fernseher, während das Internet nur zwischen 19 und 20 Uhr verfügbar ist. Als dann jedoch die junge Französin Marie ins Dorf kommt und der Frühling Einzug hält, wird nicht nur die Natur zu neuem Leben erweckt. Selbst die mürrische Mathilde kann sich dieser Entwicklung nicht entziehen.

Eine erfolgreiche Popsängerin, ein grummeliger Kleinstadt-Bäcker und romantische Verwicklungen. Amelia ist der helle Stern am Pophimmel, aber sie ist einsam und ausgebrannt. Kurzerhand steigt sie in ihren Wagen, um aus ihrem Leben auszubrechen. Ihr Ziel ist die Kleinstadt Rome, doch es läuft nicht ganz wie geplant: Sie landet im Vorgarten des mürrischen Kuchenbäckers Noah Walker. Da die Reparatur des Autos dauert, kommt sie in Noahs Gästezimmer unter, der nicht allzu begeistert davon ist. Doch mit jedem neuen Tag gelingt es Amelia mehr, hinter Noahs harte Schale zu schauen.

The story of Flem Snopes' ruthless struggle to take over the town of Jefferson, Mississippi, this is the second volume of Faulkner's trilogy about the Snopes family, his symbol for the grasping, destructive element in the post-bellum South.

This volume of six linked stories and the novella from which the book derives its title is set in Port William from 1908 to the Second World War. Here Wendell Berry introduces two of his more indelible and poignant characters, Ptolemy Proudfoot and his wife Miss Minnie, remarkable for the comic and affectionate range that—with the mastery of this consummate storyteller working at the height of his powers—here approaches the Shakespearean.

Miranda Claybourne heeft grootse plannen met de enorme tuin van het landhuis waar ze met haar man en twee kinderen is gaan wonen. Dan ontmoet ze een Fransman die aanbiedt om de tuin in oude glorie te herstellen. Als ze die weer bewoonbaar gaat maken, vindt Miranda het dagboek van Ava Lightly, de vorige bewoner. Ook raakt ze gefascineerd door de raadselachtige tuinman Jean-Paul – wat is zijn geheim?

It's 1997. Scarclaw Fell. The body of teenager Tom Jeffries is found at an outward bound centre. Verdict? Misadventure. But not everyone is convinced. And the truth of what happened in the beautiful but eerie fell is locked in the memories of the tight-knit group of friends who took that fateful trip and the flimsy testimony of those living nearby.

The queen bee of the fictional village of Riseholme, Mrs. Emmeline ‘Lucia’ Lucas is a snobbish yet oddly charming woman who prides herself on being the cultural and intellectual leader of her community. She dabbles in art, plants Shakespeare-themed flower arrangements in her garden and uses fake Italian phrases to maintain her social standing. Trouble brews when some new arrivals to town – including the glamorous opera singer Olga Bracely and the eccentric spiritualist Daisy Quantock – begin to challenge Lucia’s hold over Riseholme.

Winner of the Miles Franklin Literary Award and now a major film. When paramedic Bruce Pike is called out to deal with another teenage adventure gone wrong, he knows better than his colleague, better than the kid's parents, what happened and how. Thirty years before, that dead boy could have been him. A relentlessly gripping and deeply moving novel about the damage you do to yourself when you're young and think you're immortal.

26 ans de Marine nationale, 91 ans de mauvaise foi... Quand Zoé, 17 ans, emménage dans le Finistère chez un oncle qu’elle connait à peine, elle ne décolère pas. Pour la lycéenne solitaire qui ne rêve que d’Amérique et de voyages, la petite ville de Saint-Renan ressemble à son pire cauchemar. Déterminée à en partir dès que possible, elle compte les jours qui la séparent de sa liberté. Mais toutes ses certitudes sont mises à rude épreuve par Pierre, son voisin nonagénaire au caractère bien trempé.

We Are Unprepared is a novel about the next big storm, the one that changes our relationship to nature and each other...the superstorm that threatens to destroy a marriage, a rural Vermont town and the Eastern Seaboard when it hits. But the destruction begins months earlier, when fear infects...

Sixty-eight-year-old Hattie Kong, descendant of Confucius, daughter of an American missionary, has lived to see both her husband and her best friend die back-to-back in a single year. But two years later, it’s time for Hattie to start over. She moves to a small New England town where she is soon joined by a Cambodian American family and an ex-lover—now a retired neuroscientist—all of them looking for their own new lives.

How does a librarian from New Jersey end up in a convenience store on Vancouver Island in the middle of the night, playing Bible Scrabble with a Korean physicist and a drunk priest? She gets married to the wrong man for starters - she didn't know he was "that kind of Catholic" - and ends up in St. Cloud, Minnesota. She gets a job in a New Age bookstore, wanders toward Buddhism without realizing it, and acquires a dog. Things get complicated after that.

For Emily Rossi, life may not be perfect, but it's pretty close. She has a great career, a house in the country, a solid marriage to Eric and two wonderful children - tennis superstar Daniel and quiet, sensitive Zara. But when her fourteen-year-old daughter brings home a toxic new best friend, Emily’s seemingly perfect family starts to spiral out of control.

For more than fifty years, Wendell Berry has been telling us stories about Port William, a mythical town on the banks of the Kentucky River, populated over the years by a cast of unforgettable characters living in a single place over a long time. In A Place in Time, the stories dates range from 1864, when Rebecca Dawe finds herself in her own reflection at the end of the Civil War, to one from 1991 when Grover Gibbs's widow, Beulah, attends the auction as her home place is offered for sale.

A moose walks into a rural Maine town called Oslo. Pierre Roy, a brilliant 12-year-old, loses his memory in an accident. Three families are changed for worse and better as they grapple with trauma, marriage, ambition, and their fraught relationship with the natural world. Oslo, Maine inspects the strengths and limitations of seven average yet extraordinary people as they reckon with their considerable collective failure around Pierre's accident.

When Tallulah Jones was 13, her grandmother plucked her from the dank Oakland apartment she shared with her unreliable mom and brought her to the family ostrich ranch in the Mojave Desert. After 11 years caring for the curious, graceful birds, Tallulah accepts a job in Montana and prepares to leave home. But when Grandma Helen dies under strange circumstances, Tallulah inherits everything - just days before the birds inexplicably stop laying eggs.

Through 23 connected short stories, the author looks into the lives of the inhabitants of a small town in the American heartland. In a simple and intense style, these psychological portraits of the sensitive and imaginative of Winesburg's population are seen through the eyes of a young reporter-narrator, George Willard. Their stories are about loneliness and alienation, passion and virginity, wealth and poverty, thrift and profligacy, carelessness and abandon.

Sonny and Clara Myers struggle on their Kansas farm in the late 1930s, a time the Lord gave up on: their land's gone dry, barren, and worthless; the bankers are greedy and hungry, trying to squeeze them and other farmers out of their homes; and, on top of that, their marriage is in trouble. The couple can struggle or surrender and hightail it to California like most of the others. Sonny refuses to abandon the family farm, so Clara takes off westward in their old battered truck. Alone on the farm and determined to get back Clara and the good old days, Sonny comes up with an idea....

Ray Welter, who was until recently a high-flying advertising executive in Chicago, has left the world of newspeak behind. He decamps to the isolated Scottish Isle of Jura in order to spend a few months in the cottage where George Orwell wrote most of his seminal novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four. Ray is miserable and quite prepared to make his troubles go away with the help of copious quantities of excellent scotch.