Showing results by publisher "Phoenix Books" in Literary Fiction

In the year 2005, Sarah finds herself drawn into the tumultuous lives of her unconventional ancestors. Spanning a hundred years, she calls to memory her great-grandmother Sarah, propelled by a Russian pogrom to America in 1906; her grandmother Salome, who cavorted with Henry Miller in pre-war Paris; and finally, her mother, Sally, a famous folk singer and emblem of the 1960s. Through the paradoxical nature of memory, Sarah discovers the power and passion that is her matriarchal birthright and comes to understand and impart her own story.

Entranced by romantic tales of heroism and chivalry, Don Quixote—self-proclaimed knight errant—embarks on a delusional quest for fame and adventure. The eccentric Spanish country gentleman and his companion Sancho encounter an array of unforgettable characters and undertake some of the most famously foolhardy exploits in literature. Listeners will delight in following their chivalrous misadventures to right wrongs and punish evil in this timeless, laugh-out-loud tale.

Winona Pathfinder, an elderly Lakota Sioux medicine woman, announces she intends to die in two months. For counseling, Winona is referred to Caucasian, middle-aged, and divorced psychologist Dr. Meggie O'Connor. A reluctant client, the feisty Winona decides to turn the tables and teach Dr. O'Connor a thing or two about life while steadfastly refusing to renounce her plans to die.

Set in 17th-century Puritan Boston, The Scarlet Letter tackles the subjects of social stigma, shame, and judgment. Hester Prynne is at the forefront of the scandal, subject to public humiliation for bearing a child out of wedlock. Forced to wear a scarlet "A" on her clothing for the rest of her life, she cannot run from her sin. Hester refuses to name her daughter's father, a local reverend whom she is in love with, a timid man who keeps his secret from the community.

"Isn't so and so a snob?" he asks. "She won't even admit she liked Grease." Looking for an author who ponders the imponderable, expresses the inexpressible, describes the indescribable, and leaves no burning issue of American popular culture or world concern unexamined? Well, you'll find him in Mark Leyner. On this recording, Leyner, one of the most gifted and original young American writers around, reads 6 prose pieces from his first published book.

More than any other writer, Alice McDermott exposes the vein of poetry, of profound joy and pain that transforms everyday experience into the heroic and universal. At Weddings and Wakes tells the bittersweet, lovable, human story of an Irish-Catholic family on Long Island as seen through the eyes of two sisters and a brother.

"I am born" famously begins David Copperfield. However, this is a birth which is blighted by its timing: 12 o'clock on a Friday night at precisely the time the clock began to strike. Such untimeliness means that David was destined to be unlucky in life and would be privileged to see ghosts and spirits, a dubious privilege. In David Copperfield, ghosts and other supernatural phenomena are invoked in relation to a range of male characters and situations.

This is the story of a generation, shaped by the 60s, that has reached its time of reckoning, and of a man who must uncover the secrets of his father's past before he can live and love in the present. Mitch Rozier has spent half of his 50 years writing an environmental column for an alternative West coast paper. Now he finds himself back under his father's roof. Sisters Lexa and Mariah McCaskill wrestle with the past that has driven them away from domesticity:

The explosion in storytelling festivals and one-person shows demonstrate that Americans are growing disenchanted with the mass media and returning to the simple pleasures of a well-told story. Here is a survey of great contemporary monologues, including excerpts by Spalding Gray, Lynda Barry, Tom Bodett, and Peter Matthiessen.

Beaufort, South Carolina is home to the Smallwoods, a family closely knit but fiercely at odds. Georgie, the youngest, is tormented by worry for her son, who vanished two years earlier, and by her anger at her father. An unforgiving patriarch and ex-Marine, Georgie's father neglects her mother, belittles her brother Ashby, and denies her sister Claire the financial support she needs after a trying divorce.

Perhaps the finest novel of nineteenth-century England, Bleak House embodies artful narrative, an engaging cast of characters, biting satire, and a detailed depiction of Victorian society. At the height of his creative power in this great work, Dickens pursues two great themes.

Wild mustangs, ghosts on the ranch, gun-toting outlaws and trailblazing cowboys roam the pages of this collection of 8 classic stories about the American frontier. Travel down "The Road to Hell" with a mysterious ranch builder, face down the "Yellow Devil" mountain lion, travel "Where the Wind Blows Free," and join in on a herd of other adventures that will keep you reading until long after high noon.

In November of 1920, 7-year-old Bill Sackter walked through the looking glass into a state institution for the retarded. He never saw his family again. 44 years later, a much older Bill re-entered the world, hungry for all it could offer.Barry Morrow became that buddy, and learned to see the world through Bill's eyes, colored by his boundless reserve of good cheer and goofy humor. He tells Bill's story in this highly emotional performance.

There are eight million stories in the naked city; Anna is one of them. Let 'Em Eat Cake is a gritty, funny first novel that draws us into the life of lower-middle-class New York City as never before.

Bella Ford, aged 19 and inexperienced, is seduced by an older, married man and becomes pregnant. Jilted by her unscrupulous lover, Bella plans revenge and journeys to the place he told her he was from —a lie— and loses the baby during the journey. She is taken in by a family of shoemakers who help her restore her faith in living—until a crisis of extreme tragedy puts her to the highest test.

Mid-19th century Britain—and America—come to life in this darkly humored classic by Charles Dickens. Martin Chuzzlewit the elder is an old man whose death will result in a vast inheritance—but for whom is the question. Though his avaricious and sycophantic relatives hope to benefit from his demise, Martin has other plans. He raises an orphan, Mary Graham, who looks after him and draws an income—so long as the old man lives. But young Martin—named for his grandfather who has raised him along with Mary—falls in love with the orphan, which threatens to spoil the elder Chuzzlewit's plans.

Winter in a Massachusetts village serves as a backdrop to Edith Wharton's masterpiece about a man with little hope of escaping his bleak future. Married to an older woman named Zeena, Ethan Frome finds himself drawn to his wife's cousin, Mattie.