On the verge of giving up—anchored to dreams that never came true and to people who have long since disappeared from their lives—Van Booy's characters walk the streets of these stark and beautiful stories until chance meetings with strangers force them to face responsibility for lives they thought had continued on without them.

Love Begins in Winter: Five Stories (P.S.)

Literature & Fiction

Van Booy, Simon

United States

Harper-perennial

“Apowerful meditation on the undying nature of love and the often cruel beauty ofone’s own fate. This is a novel you simply must read!” —Andre Dubus III, New York Times bestselling author of Townie
FromSimon Van Booy, the award-winning author of LoveBegins in Winter and The Secret Lives of People in Love, comesa debut novel of longing and discovery amidst the ruins of Athens. Withechoes of Nicole Krauss’s The History of Love and CharlesBaxter’s The Feast of Love, Van Booy’sresonant tale of threeisolated, disaffected adults discovering one another in Greece is thecompelling product of an inquisitive, visionary talent. In the words of RobertOlen Butler, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Good Scent from a StrangeMountain, “Simon Van Booy knows a great deal about the complex longings of thehuman heart.”

Everything Beautiful Began After: A Novel

Dramas & Plays

The Secret Lives of People in Love is the first short story collection by award-winning writer Simon Van Booy. These stories, set in Kentucky, New York, Paris, Rome, and Greece, are a perfect synthesis of intensity and atmosphere. Love, loss, human contact, and isolation are Van Booy's themes. In radiant prose he writes about the difficult choices we make in order to retain our humanity and about the redemptive power of love in a violent world. Included in this updated P.S. edition is the new story "The Mute Ventriloquist."

The Secret Lives of People in Love: Stories (P.S.)

Provocative and eye-opening, Why We Need Love is one of three slim selections of philosophical texts and excerpts—along with Why We Fight and Why Our Decisions Don’t Matter—introduced and contextualized by acclaimed author Simon Van Booy (Love Begins in Winter, The Secret Lives of People in Love).

Why We Need Love (Harperperennial Modern Thought)

Essays & Correspondence

Provocative and eye-opening, Why Our Decisions Don’t Matter is one of three slim selections of philosophical texts and excerpts—along with Why We Need Love and Why We Fight—introduced and contextualized by acclaimed author Simon Van Booy (Love Begins in Winter, The Secret Lives of People in Love).

Why Our Decisions Don't Matter (Harperperennial Modern Thought)

Self-Help

Personal Transformation

Provocative and eye-opening, Why We Fight is one of three slim selections of philosophical texts and excerpts—along with Why We Need Love and Why Our Decisions Don’t Matter—introduced and contextualized by acclaimed author Simon Van Booy (Love Begins in Winter, The Secret Lives of People in Love).

Why We Fight (Harperperennial Modern Thought)

History

Historical Study & Educational Resources

In The Illusion of Separateness, award-winning author Simon Van Booy tells a harrowing and enchanting story of how one man’s act of mercy during World War II changed the lives of strangers, and how they each discover the astonishing truth of their connection. Whether they are pursued by Nazi soldiers, old age, shame, deformity, disease, or regret, the characters in this utterly compelling novel discover in their, darkest moments of fear and isolation that they are not alone, that they were never alone, that every human being is a link in an unseen chain. The Illusion of Separateness intertwines the stories of unique and compelling characters who—through seemingly random acts of selflessness—discover the vital parts they have played in each other’s lives.

The Illusion of Separateness: A Novel

Harper

A deluxe Harper Perennial Legacy Edition, with an introduction from Simon Van Booy, nationally best-selling author of Father’s Day and The Illusion of Separateness
A compelling historical novel of a young man’s rise from poverty to wealth in a small provincial town during the Industrial Revolution, now available in a Legacy Edition from Harper Perennial Modern Classics.
Like Charles Dickens’s beloved David Copperfield, John Halifax is an orphan, determined to make his success through honest hard work. He becomes an apprentice to Abel Flecher, a tanner and a Quaker, and is soon befriended by Abel’s invalid son, Phineas, who chronicles John’s success in business and love, rising from the humblest of origins to the pinnacle of wealth made possible by England’s Industrial Revolution.
Dinah Maria Mulock Craik explores the sweeping transformation wrought by this revolutionary technological age, including the rise of the middle class and its impact on the social, economic, and political makeup of the nation as it moved from the eighteenth to the nineteenth century.
This Legacy Edition features a lush design and French flaps.

John Halifax, Gentleman: A Novel (Harper Perennial Deluxe Editions)

Craik, Dinah Maria Mulock

When devastating news shatters the life of six-year-old Harvey, she finds herself in the care of a veteran social worker, Wanda, and alone in the world save for one relative she has never met—a disabled felon, haunted by a violent past he can't escape.
Moving between past and present, Father’s Day weaves together the story of Harvey’s childhood on Long Island and her life as a young woman in Paris. Written in raw, spare prose that personifies the characters, this novel is the journey of two people searching for a future in the ruin of their past.
Father's Day is a meditation on the quiet, sublime power of compassion, and the beauty of simple, everyday things--a breakthrough work from one of our most gifted chroniclers of the human heart.

Father's Day: A Novel

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

Books by Van Booy, Simon

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

Love Begins in Winter: Five Stories (P.S.)

Everything Beautiful Began After: A Novel

The Secret Lives of People in Love: Stories (P.S.)

Why We Need Love (Harperperennial Modern Thought)

Why Our Decisions Don't Matter (Harperperennial Modern Thought)

Why We Fight (Harperperennial Modern Thought)

The Illusion of Separateness: A Novel

The Illusion of Separateness: A Novel

John Halifax, Gentleman: A Novel (Harper Perennial Deluxe Editions)

Father's Day: A Novel