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The king's pleasure : a novel of Henry VIII / by Weir, Alison,1951-author.;
"Young Henry began his rule as a magnificent and chivalrous Renaissance prince who embodied every virtue. He had all the qualities to make a triumph of his kingship, yet we remember only the violence. Henry famously broke with the Pope, founding the Church of England and launching a religious revolution that divided his kingdom. He beheaded two of his wives and cast aside two others. He died a suspicious, obese, disease-riddled tyrant, old before his time. His reign is remembered as one of dangerous intrigue and bloodshed--and yet the truth is far more complex. The King's Pleasure brings to life the idealistic monarch who expanded Parliament, founded the Royal Navy, modernized medical training, composed music and poetry, and patronized the arts. A passionate man in search of true love, he was stymied by the imperative to produce a male heir, as much a victim of circumstance as his unhappy wives. Had fate been kinder to him, the history of England would have been very different. Here is the story of the private man. To his contemporaries, he was a great king, a legend in his own lifetime. And he left an extraordinary legacy--a modern Britain"--
Subjects: Biographical fiction.; Historical fiction.; Novels.; Henry VIII, King of England, 1491-1547;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Low-hanging fruit : sparkling whines, champagne problems, and pressing issues from my gay agenda / by Rainbow, Randy,1981-author.;
"A new essay collection by adored comedian and New York Times bestseller Randy Rainbow. Randy Rainbow has a few things on his mind that he wants to talk about. As a savvy social commentator tuned into the public discourse, his unfailing intuition tells him that the perspective everyone in America is clamoring for is that of a privileged white male complaining about a bunch of shit. While writing his New York Times bestseller Playing With Myself, Randy saw an America in crisis. He knew that what the country needed to get back on its high heels was a hard-hitting gay agenda and here it is--Low Hanging Fruit--a book filled with sparkling whines, a few flutes of champagne problems and a Birkin bag of the most pressing issues facing the US, from dancing TikTok grandmas, to Elon Musk, the GOP, and Donald Jessica Trump. On the down low, Randy dishes up some sex talk about life on the dating apps, Craigslist hookups and more. ("Gurl, wait till you hear the story about the fireman and the goggles ... ") Randy's longtime companion, the glamorous Chinchilla Silver Persian cat Tippi, makes an appearance as she dishes about her life Chez Randy. And, in the most highly anticipated sequel since Top Gun: Maverick, Randy continues the conversation with his mother, Gwen, because who knows better than the Jewish mother of a gay man about how to solve America's problems? Randy Rainbow's Low Hanging Fruit--a bold manifesto for a nation desperately in need of a makeover"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Personal narratives.; Rainbow, Randy, 1981-; Comedians; Gay men; Jewish men; Singers;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Bloomsbury girls [sound recording] / by Jenner, Natalie,author.; Stevenson, Juliet,narrator.; Macmillan Audio (Firm),publisher.;
Read by Juliet Stevenson."Natalie Jenner, the internationally bestselling author of The Jane Austen Society, returns with a compelling and heartwarming story of post-war London, a century-old bookstore, and three women determined to find their way in a fast-changing world in Bloomsbury Girls. Bloomsbury Books is an old-fashioned new and rare book store that has persisted and resisted change for a hundred years, run by men and guided by the general manager's unbreakable fifty-one rules. But in 1950, the world is changing, especially the world of books and publishing, and at Bloomsbury Books, the girls in the shop have plans: Vivien Lowry: Single since her aristocratic fiance was killed in action during World War II, the brilliant and stylish Vivien has a long list of grievances--most of them well justified and the biggest of which is Alec McDonough, the Head of Fiction. Grace Perkins: Married with two sons, she's been working to support the family following her husband's breakdown in the aftermath of the war. Torn between duty to her family and dreams of her own. Evie Stone: In the first class of female students from Cambridge permitted to earn a degree, Evie was denied an academic position in favor of her less accomplished male rival. Now she's working at Bloomsbury Books while she plans to remake her own future. As they interact with various literary figures of the time--Daphne Du Maurier, Ellen Doubleday, Sonia Blair (widow of George Orwell), Samuel Beckett, Peggy Guggenheim, and others--these three women with their complex web of relationships, goals and dreams are all working to plot out a future that is richer and more rewarding than anything society will allow"--
Subjects: Audiobooks.; Historical fiction.; Novels.; Bookstores; Sexism; Women booksellers;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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A circle of uncommon witches / by Crutcher, Paige,author.;
"A witch generationally cursed to never find true love sets out to break the spell cast on her family, and must team up with the last person who wants to help her-the witch who set the curse in the first place. Doreen MacKinnon is doomed to die of a broken heart-if she can't break the centuries old curse placed on her family. Three hundred years ago, Ambrose MacDonald, a powerful male witch, fell in love with a MacKinnon. And when the MacKinnon witches forbade him from seeing his love, by secretly hiding her away, he retaliated by cursing the family and its future generations to never find love. But it wasn't without a cost. Now, Ambrose is imprisoned by those same witches, trapped in a tempest and doomed to outlive everyone he has ever loved. But Doreen isn't like the other MacKinnon witches. As the 13th generation of the MacKinnon line, Doreen is one of the most powerful witches in centuries ... and one of the loneliest. So when she discovers where Ambrose has been trapped, she releases him to help her break the curse, once and for all. Ambrose agrees to help, but with his own motive: vengeance. He plans to use her as bait to enact his revenge on her family. Together, they enter a series of trials, which take them to a castle in Scotland, off a cliff, and into a world beyond their wildest dreams. As they work together, sparks start to fly, but soon Doreen must choose how far she is willing to go to break the curse, and what she's willing to sacrifice. Paige Crutcher's A Circle of Uncommon Witches is a story of adventure, romance, and destiny, that asks: is true love worth the cost?"--
Subjects: Witch fiction.; Paranormal fiction.; Fantasy fiction.; Novels.; Blessing and cursing; Man-woman relationships; Revenge; Witches;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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City of girls / by Gilbert, Elizabeth,1969-author.;
Told from the perspective of an older woman as she looks back on her youth with both pleasure and regret (but mostly pleasure), City of Girls explores themes of female sexuality and promiscuity, as well as the idiosyncrasies of true love. In 1940, nineteen-year-old Vivian Morris has just been kicked out of Vassar College, owing to her lackluster freshman-year performance. Her affluent parents send her to Manhattan to live with her Aunt Peg, who owns a flamboyant, crumbling midtown theater called the Lily Playhouse. There Vivian is introduced to an entire cosmos of unconventional and charismatic characters, from the fun-chasing showgirls to a sexy male actor, a grand-dame actress, a lady-killer writer, and no-nonsense stage manager. But when Vivian makes a personal mistake that results in professional scandal, it turns her new world upside down in ways that it will take her years to fully understand. Ultimately, though, it leads her to a new understanding of the kind of life she craves - and the kind of freedom it takes to pursue it. It will also lead to the love of her life, a love that stands out from all the rest. Now eighty-nine years old and telling her story at last, Vivian recalls how the events of those years altered the course of her life - and the gusto and autonomy with which she approached it.
Subjects: Domestic fiction.; Historical fiction.; Young women; Theaters; Entertainers;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 3
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The sisterhood : the secret history of women at the CIA / by Mundy, Liza,1960-author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."The New York Times bestselling author of Code Girls reveals the untold story of how women at the CIA ushered in the modern intelligence age, a sweeping story of a "sisterhood" of women spies spanning three generations who broke the glass ceiling, helped transform spycraft, and tracked down Osama Bin Laden. Upon its creation in 1947, the Central Intelligence Agency instantly became one of the most important spy services in the world. Like every male-dominated workplace in Eisenhower America, the growing intelligence agency needed women to type memos, send messages, manipulate expense accounts, and keep secrets. Despite discrimination--even because of it--these clerks and secretaries rose to become some of the shrewdest, toughest operatives the agency employed. Because women were seen as unimportant, they moved unnoticed on the streets of Bonn, Geneva, and Moscow, stealing secrets under the noses of the KGB. Back at headquarters, they built the CIA's critical archives--first by hand, then by computer. These women also battled institutional stereotyping and beat it. Men argued they alone could run spy rings. But the women proved they could be spymasters, too. During the Cold War, women made critical contributions to U.S. intelligence, sometimes as officers, sometimes as unpaid spouses, working together as their numbers grew. The women also made unique sacrifices, giving up marriage, children, even their own lives. They noticed things that the men at the top didn't see. In the final years of the twentieth century, it was a close-knit network of female CIA analysts who warned about the rising threat of Al Qaeda. After the 9/11 attacks, women rushed to join the fight as a new job, "targeter," came to prominence. They showed that painstaking data analysis would be crucial to the post-9/11 national security landscape--an effort that culminated spectacularly in the CIA's successful efforts to track down Osama Bin Laden and, later, Ayman al-Zawahiri. With the same meticulous reporting and storytelling verve that she brought to her New York Times bestseller Code Girls, Liza Mundy has written an indispensable and sweeping history that reveals how women at the CIA ushered in the modern intelligence age"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Personal narratives.; United States. Central Intelligence Agency; Espionage, American; Intelligence service; Women intelligence officers; Women spies;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Table for two [sound recording] : fictions / by Towles, Amor,author.; Ballerini, Edoardo,1970-narrator.; Smith-Cameron, J.,narrator.; Penguin Audio (Firm),publisher.;
Read by Edoardo Ballerini, J. Smith-Cameron."The millions of readers of Amor Towles are in for a treat as he shares some of his shorter fiction: six stories set in New York City and a novella in Los Angeles. The New York stories, most of which are set around the turn of the millennium, take up everything from the death-defying acrobatics of the male ego, to the fateful consequences of brief encounters, and the delicate mechanics of compromise which operate at the heart of modern marriages. In Towles's novel, Rules of Civility, the indomitable Evelyn Ross leaves New York City in September, 1938, with the intention of returning home to Indiana. But as her train pulls into Chicago, where her parents are waiting, she instead extends her ticket to Los Angeles. Told from seven points of view, "Eve in Hollywood" describes how Eve crafts a new future for herself -- and others -- in the midst of Hollywood's golden age. Throughout the stories, two characters often find themselves sitting across a table for two where the direction of their futures may hinge upon what they say to each other next. Written with his signature wit, humor, and sophistication, Table for Two is another glittering addition to Towles's canon of stylish and transporting historical fiction"--
Subjects: Audiobooks.; Bildungsromans.; Historical fiction.; Novellas.; Short stories.; Fate and fatalism; Interpersonal relations; Meetings;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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James [text (large print)] : a novel / by Everett, Percival,author.; based on (work):Twain, Mark,1835-1910.Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.;
"From Percival Everett-a recipient of the NBCC Lifetime Achievement Award and finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, Booker Prize, and numerous PEN awards-comes James, a retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, both harrowing and ferociously funny, told from the enslaved Jim's point of view. When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby Jackson Island until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck Finn has faked his own death to escape his violent father, recently returned to town. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and too-often-unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond. While many narrative set pieces of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn remain in place (floods and storms, stumbling across both unexpected death and unexpected treasure in the myriad stopping points along the river's banks, encountering the scam artists posing as the Duke and Dauphin ... ), Jim's agency, intelligence and compassion are shown in a radically new light. Brimming with the electrifying humor and lacerating observations that have made Everett a "cult literary icon" (Oprah Daily), and one of the most decorated writers of our lifetime, James is destined to be a major publishing event and a cornerstone of twenty-first century American literature"--
Subjects: Historical fiction.; Large print books.; Satirical literature.; Novels.; Finn, Huckleberry (Fictitious character); Fugitive slaves; Male friendship; Race relations; Runaway children;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
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Daughters of Shandong / by Chung, Eve J.,author.;
"A propulsive, extraordinary novel about a mother and her daughters' harrowing escape to Taiwan as the Communist revolution sweeps through China, by debut author Eve J. Chung, based on her family story. Daughters are the Ang family's curse. In 1948, civil war ravages the Chinese countryside, but in rural Shandong, the wealthy, landowning Angs are more concerned with their lack of an heir. Hai is the eldest of four girls and spends her days looking after her sisters. Headstrong Di, who is just a year younger, learns to hide in plain sight, and their mother-abused by the family for failing to birth a boy-finds her own small acts of rebellion in the kitchen. As the Communist army closes in on their town, the rest of the prosperous household flees, leaving behind the girls and their mother because they view them as useless mouths to feed. Without an Ang male to punish, the land-seizing cadres choose Hai, as the eldest child, to stand trial for her family's crimes. She barely survives their brutality. Realizing the worst is yet to come, the women plan their escape. Starving and penniless but resourceful, they forge travel permits and embark on a thousand-mile journey to confront the family that abandoned them. From the countryside to the bustling city of Qingdao, and onward to British Hong Kong and eventually Taiwan, they witness the changing tide of a nation and the plight of multitudes caught in the wake of revolution. But with the loss of their home and the life they've known also comes new freedom-to take hold of their fate, to shake free of the bonds of their gender, and to claim their own story. Told in assured, evocative prose, with impeccably drawn characters, Daughters of Shandong is a hopeful, powerful story about the resilience of women in war; the enduring love between mothers, daughters, and sisters; and the sacrifices made to lift up future generations"--
Subjects: Historical fiction.; Novels.; Mothers and daughters; Patriarchy; Rich people; Sisters; Torture; War victims; Women;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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California golden [sound recording] : a novel / by Benjamin, Melanie,1962-author.; Lakin, Christine,1979-narrator.; Random House Audio Publishing,publisher.;
Read by Christine Lakin."Southern California, 1960s: endless sunny days surfing in Malibu, followed by glittering neon nights at Whisky A-Go-Go. In an era when women are expected to be housewives, Carol Donelly is breaking the mold as a legendary female surfer struggling to compete in a male-dominated sport--and her daughters, Mindy and Ginger, bear the weight of her unconventional lifestyle. The Donnelly sisters grow up enduring their mother's absence--physically, when she's at the beach, and emotionally, the rare times she's at home. To escape questions about Carol's whereabouts--and chase their mom's elusive affection--they cut school to spend their days in the surf. From her first time on a board, Mindy shows a natural talent, but Ginger, two years younger, feels out of place in the water. As they grow up and their lives diverge, Mindy and Ginger's relationship ebbs and flows. Mindy finds herself swept up in celebrity, complete with beachside love affairs, parties at the Playboy Club, and USO tours to Vietnam. Meanwhile, Ginger--desperate for a community of her own--is tugged into the vibrant counterculture of drugs and cults. Through it all, their sense of duty to each other survives, as the girls are forever connected by the emotional damage they carry from their unorthodox childhood. A gripping, emotional story set at a time when mothers were expected to be Donna Reed, not Gidget, California Golden is an unforgettable novel about three women living in a society that was shifting as tempestuously as the breaking waves"--
Subjects: Audiobooks.; Historical fiction.; Novels.; Interpersonal relations; Mothers and daughters; Sisters;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Results 181 to 190 of 244 | « previous |