In the best tradition of Tessa Hadley, Kazuo Ishiguro, and Ann Patchett—an astonishing, keenly observed period piece about an ordinary British woman in the 1950s whose dutiful life takes a sudden turn into a pitched battle between propriety and unexpected passion. 
"With wit and dry humor...quietly affecting in unexpected ways. Chambers' language is beautiful, achieving what only the most skilled writers can: big pleasure wrought from small details."--The New York Times 
LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 
1957: Jean Swinney is a feature writer on a local paper in the southeast suburbs of London. Clever but with limited career opportunities and on the brink of forty, Jean lives a dreary existence that includes caring for her demanding widowed mother, who rarely leaves the house. It’s a small life with little joy and no likelihood of escape. 
That all changes when a young woman, Gretchen Tilbury, contacts the paper to claim that her daughter is the result of a virgin birth. Jean seizes onto the bizarre story and sets out to discover whether Gretchen is a miracle or a fraud. But the more Jean investigates, the more her life becomes strangely (and not unpleasantly) intertwined with that of the Tilburys, including Gretchen’s gentle and thoughtful husband Howard, who mostly believes his wife, and their quirky and charming daughter Margaret, who becomes a sort of surrogate child for Jean. Gretchen, too, becomes a much-needed friend in an otherwise empty social life. 
Jean cannot bring herself to discard what seems like her one chance at happiness, even as the story that she is researching starts to send dark ripples across all their lives…with unimaginable consequences. 
Both a mystery and a love story, Small Pleasures is a literary tour-de-force in the style of The Remains of the Day, about conflict between personal fulfillment and duty; a novel that celebrates the beauty and potential for joy in all things plain and unfashionable.

Small Pleasures: A Novel

Literature & Fiction

Chambers, Clare

Literary

Mariner Books

Product Description 
In the best tradition of Tessa Hadley, Kazuo Ishiguro, and Ann Patchett—an astonishing, keenly observed period piece about an ordinary British woman in the 1950s whose dutiful life takes a sudden turn into a pitched battle between propriety and unexpected passion. 
"With wit and dry humor...quietly affecting in unexpected ways. Chambers' language is beautiful, achieving what only the most skilled writers can: big pleasure wrought from small details."--The New York Times 
LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 
1957: Jean Swinney is a feature writer on a local paper in the southeast suburbs of London. Clever but with limited career opportunities and on the brink of forty, Jean lives a dreary existence that includes caring for her demanding widowed mother, who rarely leaves the house. It’s a small life with little joy and no likelihood of escape. 
That all changes when a young woman, Gretchen Tilbury, contacts the paper to claim that her daughter is the result of a virgin birth. Jean seizes onto the bizarre story and sets out to discover whether Gretchen is a miracle or a fraud. But the more Jean investigates, the more her life becomes strangely (and not unpleasantly) intertwined with that of the Tilburys, including Gretchen’s gentle and thoughtful husband Howard, who mostly believes his wife, and their quirky and charming daughter Margaret, who becomes a sort of surrogate child for Jean. Gretchen, too, becomes a much-needed friend in an otherwise empty social life. 
Jean cannot bring herself to discard what seems like her one chance at happiness, even as the story that she is researching starts to send dark ripples across all their lives…with unimaginable consequences. 
Both a mystery and a love story, Small Pleasures is a literary tour-de-force in the style of The Remains of the Day, about conflict between personal fulfillment and duty; a novel that celebrates the beauty and potential for joy in all things plain and unfashionable. 
 Review 
"With wit and dry humor...quietly affecting in unexpected ways. Chambers' language is beautiful, achieving what only the most skilled writers can: big pleasure wrought from small details." -- 
New York Times\n“I've had about five people recommend this to me, which is quite rare... It's a novel about the last throw of the dice, the last chance perhaps of finding a life of happiness when you've had a struggle. The writing is beautiful. This is also the first novel Chambers has written for 10 years, which I find really inspiring--she's come back with this absolute humdinger. It's just so nice to read a book by someone who's so confident with their talent.” -- 
Jessie Burton, bestselling author of The Miniaturist \n“ 
Small Pleasures is a tender and heart-rending tale that will draw you in from the first page and keep you gripped until the very end. Exquisitely compelling!” -- 
Ruth Hogan, author of The Keeper of Lost Things\n“A very fine book... It's witty and sharp and reads like something by Barbara Pym or Anita Brookner, without ever feeling like a pastiche." 
 -- 
David Nicholls, bestselling author of One Day \n"An irresistible novel—wry, perceptive and quietly devastating." -- 
Hephzibah Anderson, Mail on Sunday\n“ 
Small Pleasures is an almost flawlessly written tale of genuine, grown-up romantic anguish. Written in prose that is clipped as closely as suburban hedges, this is a book about seemingly mild people concealing turbulent feelings….” -- 
Johanna Thomas-Corr, The Sunday Times\n“A brilliant book… A love story between people who are not usually the leading players in love story… I found it incredibly absorbing." -- 
Kathleen MacMahon, The Irish Times\n"Gripping...penetrates the secret hopes and passionate inner lives of ordinary working people. The characters provoke so much empathy, readers may have trouble remembering that they’re fictional. -- 
Booklist

In 1976 four students took a trip to the desert. Now the repercussions of that fateful summer are coming back to haunt them... And repercussions are just what Guy doesn't need: his wife, Jane, is moving swiftly from slightly eccentric to downright peculiar, their three-year-old daughter seems set on destroying Jane's sanity, and now even God's gone quiet on him. As for Nina, she's having enough trouble with her son, James. He's got exams looming, a new girlfriend with pneumatic breasts and now, it seems, he's on drugs. Nina certainly won't welcome any ghosts from the past.Life isn't going smoothly for anyone. But when Hugo, long-forgotten agent of misfortune, threatens to pay them all a visit, disaster seems unavoidable.

A Dry Spell

Contemporary

Arrow

In a Good Light

A face in the crowd jolts Esther out of her mundane existence and back to memories of an eccentric childhood, a chaotic existence peopled by a rich collection of feckless “guests,” and memories of a tragedy that shattered all their lives.

The Editor's Wife

On the brink of success, aspiring novelist Christopher Flinders makes a desperate misjudgment that results in disaster for all involved. Twenty years later Christopher is forced to exhume his past, setting him on a path to a life-altering discovery.\nFrom the Hardcover edition.

Freedom and Equality: Essays on Liberalism and Feminism

Politics & Social Sciences

Philosophy

Oxford University Press

Against Marriage argues that marriage violates both equality and liberty and should not be recognized by the state. Clare Chambers shows how feminist and liberal principles require creation of a marriage-free state: one in which private marriages, whether religious or secular, would have no legal status. Part One makes the case against marriage. Chambers investigates the critique of marriage that has developed within feminist and liberal theory. Feminists have long argued that state-recognised marriage is a violation of equality. Chambers endorses the feminist view and argues, in contrast to recent egalitarian pro-marriage movements, that same-sex marriage is not enough to make marriage equal. The egalitarian case against marriage is the most fundamental argument of Against Marriage. But Chambers also argues that state-recognised marriage violates liberty, including the political liberal version of liberty that is based on neutrality between conceptions of the good. Part Two sets out the case for the marriage-free state. Chambers criticizes recent arguments that traditional marriage should be replaced with either a reformed version of marriage, such as civil partnership, or a purely contractual model of relationship regulation. She then sets out a new model for the legal regulation of personal relationships. Instead of regulating by status, the state should regulate relationships according to the practices they involve. Instead of regulating relationships holistically, assuming that relationship practices are bundled together in one significant relationship, the marriage-free state regulates practices on a piecemeal basis. The marriage-free state thus employs piecemeal, practice-based regulation. It may regulate private marriages, including religious marriages, so as to protect equality. But it takes no interest in defining or protecting the meaning of marriage.

Against Marriage: An Egalitarian Defense of the Marriage-Free State (Oxford Political Theory)

Self-Help

Relationships

Biographies & Memoirs

Back Trouble

Andre Deutsch Ltd.

Sex, Culture, and Justice: The Limits of Choice (Penn State Press)

Penn State University Press

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