T. Coraghessan Boyle
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1994. In the desert near Tillman, Arizona, forty miles from Tucson, a grand experiment involving the future of humanity is underway. As climate change threatens the earth, eight scientists, four men and four women dubbed the "Terranauts," have been selected to live under glass in E2, a prototype of a possible off-earth colony. Closely monitored by an all-seeing Mission Control, this New Eden is both an adventure in scientific discovery and a momentous...
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"In the title story of 'Walk Between the Raindrops,' a woman sits down next to a man at a bar and claims she has ESP. In 'Thirteen Days,' passengers on a cruise line are quarantined, to horrifying and hilarious effect. And 'Hyena' begins simply: 'That was the day the hyena came for him, and never mind that there were no hyenas in the South of France, and especially not in Pont-Saint-Esprit--it was there and it came for him.' A virtuoso of the short...
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"From the title story, which features a so-called relive box that allows users to experience anew almost any moment from their past, to 'The Five-Pound Burrito, ' the tale of a man aiming to build the biggest burrito in town, the twelve stories in this collection represent a whole new way of looking at the world"--Publisher description.
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In 1943, LSD is synthesized in Basel. Two decades later, a coterie of grad students at Harvard are gradually drawn into the inner circle of renowned psychologist and psychedelic drug enthusiast Timothy Leary. Fitzhugh Loney, a psychology Ph. D. student and his wife, Joanie, become entranced by the drug's possibilities such that their "research" becomes less a matter of clinical trials and academic papers and instead turns into a free-wheeling exploration...
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When animal behaviorist Guy Schermerhorn demonstrates on a TV game show that he has taught Sam, his juvenile chimp, to speak in sign language, Aimee Villard, an undergraduate at Guy's university, is so taken with the performance that she applies to become his assistant. A romantic and intellectual attachment soon morphs into an interspecies love triangle that pushes hard at the boundaries of consciousness and the question of what we know and how we...
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Set in contemporary Northern California, The Harder They Come explores the volatile connections between three damaged peopl -- an aging ex-Marine and Vietnam veteran, his psychologically unstable son, and the son's paranoid, much older lover-- as they careen towards an explosive confrontation.
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With trademark imagination, T.C. Boyle presents a collection of fourteen short stories. In the volume's title story, Victor, a feral boy in Napoleonic France, is captured and is introduced to civilization for the first time. However it is the child't captors that end up learning the most about humanity and civility.
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Fifteen satirical stories from a master of the art. In the title story a yuppie tries to impress a Russian immigrant with the consumer culture and finds himself outdone, "Big Game," is about a phony game ranch in California, and in "Carnal Knowledge," a woman convinces a man to liberate a turkey for Thanksgiving.
10) San Miguel
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The lives of three women on turn-of-the-20th-century San Miguel are shaped by ambition and circumstance, including the wife of a Civil War veteran who hopes to recover her health, her rebellious aspiring actress daughter and a librarian who wonders if the island's peace will endure in the face of looming war.
11) Even More Laughs
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From silly chuckles to rueful ironic glee to deep cosmic laughter, this new volume of humorous tales samples the best of recent seasons of the popular public radio series Selected Shorts.
T. Coraghessan Boyle's's
The Lie
performed by Stephen Colbert
Jonathan Lethem'ss
The Spray
performed by Robert Sean Leonard
Miranda July's
The Swim Team
performed by Parker Posey
Saki'
The
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Description
"From best-selling novelist T. C. Boyle, a satirical yet ultimately moving take on contemporary American life in the glare of climate change"--
Denied a dog, a baby, and even a faithful fiancé, Cat suddenly craves a snake: a glistening, writhing creature that can be worn like "jewelry, living jewelry" to match her black jeans. But when the budding social media star promptly loses the young "Burmie" she buys from a local pet store, she inadvertently...
13) Tooth and claw
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A collection of 14 stories proves that Boyle has his finger firmly on the pulse of our times. They offer a vivid collage of millennial American life and include: 'Dogology; Here Comes; Kind Assassin; Jubilation, ' and 'Up Against the Wall, ' to name just a few.
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Robert Coover has been playing by his own rules for more than half a century, earning the 1987 Rea Award for the Short Story as "a writer who has managed, willfully and even perversely, to remain his own man while offering his generous vision and versions of America." Coover finds inspiration in everything from painting, cinema, theater, and dance to slapstick, magic acts, puzzles, and riddles. His 1969 story "The Babysitter" has alone inspired generations...
15) The lie
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Once an idealistic young man with artistic aspirations, Lonnie is stuck and doesn't quite know it. Working at an unfulfilling job, he longs to realize his lifelong dream of becoming a musician. When his wife, Clover, is presented with a career opportunity that could provide them with the stability she craves, but one that goes against their beliefs, Lonnie cannot muster the resolve to endure another day at work, so he tells a lie, a life-altering...
Series
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"'To read their stories felt to me the way I suspect other people feel hearing jazz for the first time, ' recalls Curtis Sittenfeld of her initial encounter with the Best American Short Stories series. 'They were windows into emotions I had and hadn't had, into other settings and circumstances and observations and relationships.' Sittenfeld was met by the same feeling selecting the stories for this year's edition. The result is a striking and nuanced...