Bloom is a therapist who does not shy away from the taboo in this collection of short stories exploring the complexities of relationships and families, tied together nicely by the appearance of some of the characters in multiple stories.
This New England love triangle features a town librarian caught between twin brothers in early 20th century Vermont.
In 1942
former novelist Jack Delaney is released from jail and leaves California for
Pennsylvania when he hears that his former girlfriend Holly may be in trouble.
Delaney finds evidence of a conspiracy behind the disappearance, and possible
death, of Holly’s father. At the same time, he discovers his affinity for radio
as he produces a series of politically controversial broadcast dramas.
For
generations men have made carpets from the hair of their wives and daughters,
carpets so intricate that each carpet maker only finishes one in his lifetime,
which is then sold and shipped to a faraway planet to the palace of their
Emperor. But one day, rebels arrive on ships with word that the Emperor is dead
and the empire has fallen. They are shocked to learn that the economy of the
planet has depended on the manufacture of these hair carpets, as there are no
such carpets in the palace. As the rebels continue to visit planet after planet
with news of the fallen empire, they learn that thousands of planets are
producing these carpets, but why?
Six years after the Korean War, Corporal Rudy Spruance is sent to Qangattarsa, Greenland where maimed soldiers from the war live out their final days in a secret military hospital.
Fourteen-year-old Francesca is talented, goodhearted, pretty, but in no way remarkable. Then a homeless man says her touch cured his heart trouble. People start gathering across the street from her house, hoping for a glimpse of her. Others leave flowers, letters, gifts for “the Virgin” as they call her. She’s mobbed whenever she leaves the house. Then she starts to wonder how long she can hide her morning sickness and missed periods from her mother….
Hansen, Ron. Isn’t it Romantic?
Nathalie Clairvaux is twenty-six, French, and touring America by bus. She wanted some time away from Pierre, her playboy fiancée. But Pierre finds out where she’s gone and soon catches up—just in time to get stranded with Nathalie in Seldom, Nebraska, population 395. Soon Nathalie is being wooed by local rancher Dick Tupper. Pierre falls for Iona, a waitress in the local café, who’s really in love with Dick. Then there’s Owen, local gas station owner and amateur wine maker, who needs help from the wine business owned by Pierre’s family to launch his Nebraska vintage….
A group of eight surreally pretentious high school students are the focus of this satirical novel about dating, absinthe, murder, and the media. Written in the style of a highly-edited journal, the dark humor is reminiscent of the author’s acclaimed children’s series A Series of Unfortunate Events. But don’t be fooled – this is definitely not a children’s book.
In a small Colorado town, a pregnant 17-year-old tries to make her way after being disowned by her mother, a high school teacher raises his two sons alone, and two elderly bachelor brothers work their family homestead as they have done all their lives. Chapters alternate between characters, but as the story progresses their lives begin to intersect.
The two-and-a-half-year-old daughter of a mixed-race couple falls into a well in Michigan. The story of the rescue effort is interspersed with tales from the ancestors of her handicapped librarian mother with roots in Finland and her father, a Chinese-American musician and gutter installer.
For the thirty years since he received a severe blow to the head, Howard Kapostash has not spoken. When a single mother must enter rehab and leaves her nine-year-old son in Howard’s care, he finds that the routines of his life designed to minimize human contact are now far too restrictive. Emerging from isolation, Howard is forced to confront emotions he has suppressed for decades.
An epic tale of a sheep farmer in Iceland, this novel earned the author the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1955. After 18 years of service Bjartur is finally able to buy his own croft and, ignoring local superstition, buys Summerhouses, a site believed to be haunted. Valuing his independence above all, stubborn Bjartur endures many hardships including the death of two wives and several children.
Two teenage girls live in a run-down castle in England with their father, a well-known author suffering an extended case of writer’s block, and their stepmother, a former model. Through her journal the younger sister, Cassandra, tells the story of her family and her first love. Compared stylistically to Jane Austen, this book was written in 1948 by the author of 101 Dalmations.
Imaginative stories and eccentric characters fill the thirteen stories in this slim collection by the grand niece of Lev Tolstoy.
Before the age of the printing press, a master illuminator with unconventional views forges an alliance with a wealthy widow in this medieval tale of secrets and danger.