Alva and Irva Dapps are identical twin sisters who live in the city of Entralla. Like the Emerald City, Gondal, and Brobdingnag, only one guidebook to the place exists, and this novel is it. Alva is an explorer who longs to travel the world. Irva is a recluse for whom stepping outside the house is an ordeal. Yet the twins feel each other's emotions, think each other's thoughts, love and hate and suffer as one--they cannot survive without one another. And thereby hangs an inventive tale of creativity, obsession, and genius bred by necessity. Together, the twins build a model of the city on a scale that might accommodate the desires of both sisters and comes to serve Entralla in a way its creators never could have imagined.

Alva & Irva: The Twins Who Saved a City

CAREY, Edward

Parenting & Relationships

Houghton, mifflin, harcourt

<div>Alva and Irva Dapps are identical twin sisters brilliantly portrayed living in an imaginary&mdash;but altogether imaginable&mdash;city. In this inventive tale of creativity, obsession, and passion, Edward Carey touches deftly on the fine line we all walk between fantasy and reality. A shining story about love and belonging, Alva & Irva takes the reader on an enchanting journey through a city of the imagination, with unforgettable heroines whose conflicting desires contain the seeds of both their destruction and their salvation </div>

Literature & Fiction

Genre Fiction

Mariner Books

Once the Orme family’s magnificent ancestral estate, Observatory Mansions is now a crumbling apartment complex, home to an eccentric group of misfits. One of them is Francis Orme, who earns his livelihood as a living statue. When not practicing “inner and outer stillness,” Francis steals the cherished possessions of others to add to his private museum. The other tenants are equally as odd: his mother and father, who haven’t interacted in years; a man who continually sweats and cries; a recluse who prefers television to reality; and a woman who behaves like a dog. When Anna Tapp arrives among them she stirs their souls, bringing long forgotten memories to the surface–and arousing fears that this new resident intends to provoke a metamorphosis. Reminiscent of Beckett, Ionesco, and Millhauser but startlingly original, Observatory Mansions is also unexpectedly beguiling. Upon its publication in England, it was a literary sensation, and John Fowles called it “easily the most brilliant fiction I’ve seen this year.”

Observatory Mansions

Contemporary

Picador

Alva And Irva

Alva and Irva : The Twins Who Saved a City

Once the Orme family’s magnificent ancestral estate, Observatory Mansions is now a crumbling apartment complex, home to an eccentric group of misfits. One of them is Francis Orme, who earns his livelihood as a living statue. When not practicing “inner and outer stillness,” Francis steals the cherished possessions of others to add to his private museum. The other tenants are equally as odd: his mother and father, who haven’t interacted in years; a man who continually sweats and cries; a recluse who prefers television to reality; and a woman who behaves like a dog. When Anna Tapp arrives among them she stirs their souls, bringing long forgotten memories to the surface–and arousing fears that this new resident intends to provoke a metamorphosis. Reminiscent of Beckett, Ionesco, and Millhauser but startlingly original, Observatory Mansions is also unexpectedly beguiling. Upon its publication in England, it was a literary sensation, and John Fowles called it “easily the most brilliant fiction I’ve seen this year.”

Observatory Mansions: A Novel

Vintage

"An amazing achievement. . . A compulsively readable novel, so canny and weird and surfeited with the reality of human capacity and ingenuity that I am stymied for comparison. Dickens and David Lynch? Defoe meets Margaret Atwood? Judge for yourself." —Gregory Maguire, New York Times-bestselling author of Wicked The wry, macabre, unforgettable tale of an ambitious orphan in Revolutionary Paris, befriended by royalty and radicals, who transforms herself into the legendary Madame Tussaud. In 1761, a tiny, odd-looking girl named Marie is born in a village in Switzerland. After the death of her parents, she is apprenticed to an eccentric wax sculptor and whisked off to the seamy streets of Paris, where they meet a domineering widow and her quiet, pale son. Together, they convert an abandoned monkey house into an exhibition hall for wax heads, and the spectacle becomes a sensation. As word of her artistic talent spreads, Marie is called to Versailles, where she tutors a princess and saves Marie Antoinette in childbirth. But outside the palace walls, Paris is roiling: The revolutionary mob is demanding heads, and . . . at the wax museum, heads are what they do. In the tradition of Gregory Maguire's Wicked and Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus, Edward Carey's Little is a darkly endearing cavalcade of a novel—a story of art, class, determination, and how we hold on to what we love.

Little: A Novel

Humor & Satire

Riverhead Books

Humor & Entertainment

Humor

A NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS' CHOICE "A&nbsp;strange and tender parable . . . All of Edward Carey's work is profound and delightful."&nbsp;&nbsp;--Max Porter, author of Lanny The ingenious storyteller Edward Carey returns to reimagine a time-honored fable: the story of an impatient father, a rebellious son, and a watery path to forgiveness for the young man known as Pinocchio In the small Tuscan town of Collodi, a lonely woodcarver longs for the companionship of a son. One day, "as if the wood commanded me," Giuseppe--better known as Geppetto--carves for himself a pinewood boy, a marionette he hopes to take on tour worldwide. But when his handsome new creation comes magically to life,&nbsp;Geppetto screams . . . and the boy, Pinocchio, leaps from his arms and escapes into the night. Though he returns the next day, the wily boy torments his father, challenging his authority and making up stories--whereupon his nose, the very nose his father carved, grows before his eyes like an antler. When the boy disappears after one last fight, the father follows a rumor to the coast and out into the sea, where he is swallowed by a great fish--and consumed by guilt. He hunkers in the creature's belly awaiting the day when he will reconcile with the son he drove away. With all the charm, atmosphere, and emotional depth for which Edward Carey is known--and featuring his trademark fantastical illustrations--The Swallowed Man is a parable of parenthood, loss, and letting go, from a creative mind on a par with Gregory Maguire, Neil Gaiman, and Tim Burton.

The Swallowed Man: A Novel

A NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS' CHOICE\n“A strange and tender parable . . . All of Edward Carey's work is profound and delightful.” —Max Porter, author of Lanny\nThe ingenious storyteller Edward Carey returns to reimagine a time-honored fable: the story of an impatient father, a rebellious son, and a watery path to forgiveness for the young man known as Pinocchio\nIn the small Tuscan town of Collodi, a lonely woodcarver longs for the companionship of a son. One day, “as if the wood commanded me,” Giuseppe—better known as Geppetto—carves for himself a pinewood boy, a marionette he hopes to take on tour worldwide. But when his handsome new creation comes magically to life, Geppetto screams . . . and the boy, Pinocchio, leaps from his arms and escapes into the night. Though he returns the next day, the wily boy torments his father, challenging his authority and making up stories—whereupon his nose, the very nose his father carved, grows before his eyes like an antler. When the boy disappears after one last fight, the father follows a rumor to the coast and out into the sea, where he is swallowed by a great fish—and consumed by guilt. He hunkers in the creature’s belly awaiting the day when he will reconcile with the son he drove away.\nWith all the charm, atmosphere, and emotional depth for which Edward Carey is known—and featuring his trademark fantastical illustrations—The Swallowed Man is a parable of parenthood, loss, and letting go, from a creative mind on a par with Gregory Maguire, Neil Gaiman, and Tim Burton.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by CAREY, Edward. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by CAREY, Edward

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by CAREY, Edward. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Alva & Irva: The Twins Who Saved a City

Alva & Irva: The Twins Who Saved a City

Observatory Mansions

Observatory Mansions

Alva and Irva : The Twins Who Saved a City

Observatory Mansions: A Novel

Little: A Novel

Little: A Novel

The Swallowed Man: A Novel

The Swallowed Man: A Novel