For readers of Melissa Bank or Jhumpa Lahiri: witty, seductive stories of expatriate women, their loves and losses. "Interesting women -- are we ever going to be free of them? I meet them everywhere these days, now that there is no longer such a thing as an interesting man!" So drawls the narrator of one of Andrea Lee's jewel-like stories, herself, undeniably, an Interesting Woman. These gleaming, sensual stories bend a wit worthy of Colette's on a demimonde of expatriates, teenage 'pocket divas', girlfriends, wives, mistresses and daughters. Each focuses on a moment of seduction, of self-discovery, where the mocking detachment of the outsider is briefly pulled aside. An American, chained by her Italian husband's belief in her conventional wholesomeness, surprises him with two costly call girls for his birthday; but her pleasure in her own daring remains wistfully private. A New England beauty has a brief love affair, alternately lyrical and perverse, with a European prince more than twice her age. A woman, having earlier left her husband 'in a moment of epic distraction', has his new ex to stay, changing forever their understanding of the man they both married. 'Interesting Women' teases the reader with ironic glimpses of the charged games of sexual power between men and women, and women with each other. It is that delicious rarity: a summer read of sophisticated intelligence, whose gorgeous images will linger long.

Interesting Women

Literature & Fiction

Andrea Lee

Contemporary

Fourth Estate Paperbacks

For readers of Melissa Bank or Jhumpa Lahiri: witty, seductive stories of expatriate women, their loves and losses. "Interesting women -- are we ever going to be free of them? I meet them everywhere these days, now that there is no longer such a thing as an interesting man..." So drawls the narrator of one of Andrea Lee's jewel-like stories, herself, undeniably, an Interesting Woman. These gleaming, sensual stories bend a wit worthy of Colette's on a demimonde of expatriates, teenage "pocket divas," girlfriends, wives, mistresses and daughters. Each focuses on a moment of seduction, of self-discovery, where the mocking detachment of the outsider is briefly pulled aside. An American, chained by her Italian husband's belief in her conventional wholesomeness, surprises him with two costly call girls for his birthday; but her pleasure in her own daring remains wistfully private. A New England beauty has a brief love affair, alternately lyrical and perverse, with a European prince more than twice her age. A woman, having earlier left her husband "in a moment of epic distraction," has his new ex to stay, changing forever their understanding of the man they both married. INTERESTING WOMEN teases the reader with ironic glimpses of the charged games of sexual power between men and women, and women with each other. It is that delicious rarity: a summer read of sophisticated intelligence, whose gorgeous images will linger long.

From the author of "The Binding Chair", this follow-up to memoir "The Kiss" explores the bonds of motherhood between four generations. When Kathryn Harrison was a little girl, her young mother left her in the care of her British grandmother who was raised in Shanghai. To Kathryn, her mother's mother seemed an almost unimaginably powerful figure: an imperious arbiter of good taste and a master storyteller, who, when coaxed, might reveal stories of a magic and vanished world. She jilted an array of suitable men before concluding that she was not quite modern enough to have a baby without a husband. At the age of 43 she finally married, and the fruit of this union, Harrison's mother, was no more interested than she in being bound by convention. An occasional witness to her daughter's growth to adulthood, she would appear sporadically in film-star clothes and urge unwanted glamour on her shy child. Harrison grew up a spectator of the remarkable, striving to comprehend these women and yet find her own way to live. In this touching memoir, Harrison writes of the ties that bind mothers to their children - and the forces that can drive them apart. She ponders the legacy of storytelling she inherited from her grandmother, and peers into the deep well of family history from which she draws inspiration for her novels. Reconsidering her past as she watches her own children grow, she recalls the thrilling risk of shoplifting; the longing for perfection that resulted in a fierce eating disorder; and the thunderous fights that showed how impossible and how necessary it was to leave home. "Seeking Rapture" conveys the aching tenderness Harrison feels toward her children, and her awe of their imaginary worlds that no adult can enter. The evocative book will awaken readers to sift through their own sense of motherhood, loss and regeneration as it chronicles the unforgettable episodes that form the drama of domestic life.

Seeking Rapture : A Memoir

Kathryn Harrison

The true story of three men and their dreams for a racehorse -- Seabiscuit -- that symbolised a pivotal moment in American history, as the twentieth century's greatest nation found the courage to bet on itself to win against the odds. Now a major motion picture directed by Gary Ross and starring Toby Maguire and Jeff Daniels. In 1936 the habits of 19th-century America were finally consigned to history just as Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind was published. In their place, modern America was born. But what defined this new era? Nothing more than the story of Seabiscuit, a stunted colt with asymmetrical knees that had for two years been hacked around no-good race tracks which led to permanent leg damage. Yet by 1937 Seabiscuit could draw crowds of 60,000 and had more newspaper column inches devoted to him than Mussolini, Hitler or Roosevelt, his popularity peaking during his appearances at the Santa Anita Handicap. America had gone to the races for the first time since the Depression and fallen in love with a misshapen colt of great character. Now it wanted a winner. Seabiscuit is aslo the story of three men: Tom Smith, a former Wild West Showman was the trainer; Red Pollard, abandoned by his poverty stricken family at a race track became the rider; and Charles Howard, a pioneer car manufacturer in San Francisco in the 1920s was the owner and financier. These three combined to create the legend of Seabiscuit and epitomise a dream for the emerging new America.

Seabiscuit : The True Story of Three Men and a Racehorse

Biographies & Memoirs

LAURA HILLENBRAND

True Crime

This title is a spoof of the Jules Verne classic and a "Rough Guide to the World" for "Chaps" everywhere. On a wet November evening, in the refined surroundings of the Sheridan Club on London's St James's Street, Messrs Temple and Darkwood entered into a wager: Is it possible to travel the entire world, crossing all five continents, using a different method of transport for every leg of the journey? This is the story of their remarkable attempt. It is an adventure that takes the "Chaps" into territory previously unchartered by gentlemen, such as three-star hotels and standard class railway carriages, and involves some of the more curious forms of travel, including balloon, yak, elephant, Kon-Tiki raft and a sperm whale. Along the way they have to negotiate the unpalatable cuisine of North America; cross the entire Congo jungle in a sedan chair; and resort to selling their internal organs after a disastrous night spent at a seedy casino in Bangkok. Their journey is eased by the indispensable "Trubshawe's Handbook for the Gentleman Traveller" and by Ahmed, their quick witted Moroccan boyservant, who can always be relied upon to locate the nearest opium den or baccarat table. Principally though, it is an adventure fuelled by dry Martinis - the only food stuff that Messrs Temple and Darkwood feel they can trust at every corner of the globe.

Around the World in 80 Martinis : The Logbook of a Remarkable Voyage Undertaken by Gustav Temple and Vic Darkwood

Gustav Temple

From the much-loved, witty and excoriating voice of journalist Nick Cohen, a powerful and irreverent dissection of the agonies, idiocies and compromises of mainstream liberal thought. Nick Cohen comes from the Left. While growing up, his mother would search the supermarket shelves for politically reputable citrus fruit and despair. When, at the age of 13, he found out that his kind and thoughtful English teacher voted Conservative, he nearly fell off his chair: 'To be good, you had to be on the Left.' Today he's no less confused. When he looks around him, in the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq, he sees a community of Left-leaning liberals standing on their heads. Why is it that apologies for a militant Islam that stands for everything the liberal-Left is against come from a section of the Left? After the American and British wars in Bosnia and Kosovo against Slobodan Milosevic's ethnic cleansers, why were men and women of the Left denying the existence of Serb concentration camps? Why is Palestine a cause for the liberal-Left, but not, for instance, China, the Sudan, Zimbabwe or North Korea? Why can't those who say they support the Palestinian cause tell you what type of Palestine they would like to see? After the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington why were you as likely to read that a sinister conspiracy of Jews controlled American or British foreign policy in a liberal literary journal as in a neo-Nazi rag? It's easy to know what the Left is fighting against - the evils of Bush and corporations - but what and, more to the point, who are they fighting for? As he tours the follies of the Left, Nick Cohen asks us to reconsider what it means to be liberal in this confused and topsy-turvy time. With the angry satire of Swift, he reclaims the values of democracy and solidarity that united the movement against fascism, and asks: What's Left?

What's Left?

Politics & Social Sciences

Nick Cohen

Social Sciences

GET HER OFF THE PITCH PB

LYNNE TRUSS

Last Words

BURROUGHS, WILLIAM S.

Arts & Literature

From the bestselling author of 'Eats Shoots &amp; Leaves', a wonderfully funny collection of twelve monologues.

A Certain Age

TRUSS, Lynne

Dramas & Plays

Scott Pilgrim's life is totally sweet. He's 23 years old, he's in a rock band, he's "between jobs," and he's dating a cute high school girl. Nothing could possibly go wrong, unless a seriously mind-blowing, dangerously fashionable, rollerblading delivery girl named Ramona Flowers starts cruising through his dreams and sailing by him at parties. Will Scott's awesome life get turned upside-down? Will he have to face Ramona's seven evil ex-boyfriends in battle? The short answer is yes. The long answer is Scott Pilgrim, Volume 1: Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life.

Scott's Pilgrim's Precious Little Life: Volume 1 (Scott Pilgrim)

O’Malley, Bryan Lee

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

Books by Fourth Estate Paperbacks

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

Interesting Women

Interesting Women

Seeking Rapture : A Memoir

Seabiscuit : The True Story of Three Men and a Racehorse

Around the World in 80 Martinis : The Logbook of a Remarkable Voyage Undertaken by Gustav Temple and Vic Darkwood

What's Left?

GET HER OFF THE PITCH PB

Last Words

A Certain Age

Scott's Pilgrim's Precious Little Life: Volume 1 (Scott Pilgrim)