About 6 hours
“Milk Fed is a novel of appetites; a luscious, heartbreaking story of self-discovery through the relentless pursuit of desire. I couldn’t get enough of this devastating and extremely sexy book.” —Carmen Maria Machado, author of In the Dream House
A scathingly funny, wildly erotic, and fiercely imaginative story about food, sex, and god from the acclaimed author of The Pisces and So Sad Today.
Rachel is twenty-four, a lapsed Jew who has made calorie restriction her religion. By day, she maintains an illusion of existential control, by way of obsessive food rituals, while working as an underling at a Los Angeles talent management agency. At night, she pedals nowhere on the elliptical machine. Rachel is content to carry on subsisting—until her therapist encourages her to take a ninety-day communication detox from her mother, who raised her in the tradition of calorie counting.
Early in the detox, Rachel meets Miriam, a zaftig young Orthodox Jewish woman who works at her favorite frozen yogurt shop and is intent upon feeding her. Rachel is suddenly and powerfully entranced by Miriam—by her sundaes and her body, her faith and her family—and as the two grow closer, Rachel embarks on a journey marked by mirrors, mysticism, mothers, milk, and honey.
Pairing superlative emotional insight with unabashed vivid fantasy, Broder tells a tale of appetites: physical hunger, sexual desire, spiritual longing, and the ways that we as humans can compartmentalize these so often interdependent instincts. Milk Fed is a tender and riotously funny meditation on love, certitude, and the question of what we are all being fed, from one of our major writers on the psyche—both sacred and profane.

A bizarre chain of events begins when sixteen unlikely people gather for the reading of Samuel W. Westing's will. And though no one knows why the eccentric, game-loving millionaire has chosen a virtual stranger - and a possible murderer - to inherit his vast fortune, one thing's for sure: Sam Westing may be dead... but that won't stop him from playing one last game!

Will Darling came back from the Great War with a few scars, a lot of medals, and no idea what to do next. Inheriting his uncle’s chaotic second-hand bookshop is a blessing...until strange visitors start making threats. First a criminal gang, then the War Office, both telling Will to give them the information they want, or else. Will has no idea what that information is, and nobody to turn to, until Kim Secretan—charming, cultured, oddly attractive—steps in to offer help. As Kim and Will try to find answers and outrun trouble, mutual desire grows along with the danger. And then Will discovers the truth about Kim. His identity, his past, his real intentions. Enraged and betrayed, Will never wants to see him again.But Will possesses knowledge that could cost thousands of lives. Enemies are closing in on him from all sides—and Kim is the only man who can help. A 1920s m/m romance trilogy in the spirit of Golden Age pulp fiction.

A powerful reckoning over the people we might have been if we’d chosen a different path, from a master of the short story
In this stirring, reflective collection of short stories, Joyce Carol Oates ponders alternate destinies: the other lives we might have led if we’d made different choices. An accomplished writer returns to her childhood home of Yewville, but the homecoming stirs troubled thoughts about the person she might have been if she’d never left. A man in prison contemplates the gravity of his irreversible act. A student’s affair with a professor results in a pregnancy that alters the course of her life forever. Even the experience of reading is investigated as one that can create a profound transformation: “You could enter another time, the time of the book.”
The (Other) You is an arresting and incisive vision into these alternative realities, a collection that ponders the constraints we all face given the circumstances of our birth and our temperaments, and that examines the competing pressures and expectations on women in particular. Finely attuned to the nuances of our social and psychic selves, Joyce Carol Oates demonstrates here why she remains one of our most celebrated and relevant literary figures.

时间永恒地停了下来
深邃的爱情流转出更多面貌
我们却从不知道它有多美好
被誉为撑起21世纪小说江山的两位作家之一
袁哲生首次完整探索爱情的突破之作
◎ 编辑推荐
☆ “我要赶在遗忘之前，抢救对爱情的记忆。”（袁哲生《一切都是短篇 》）经过长期“捕捉孤独的角落”，创作到后期的袁哲生首次将眼光转向另一个普遍的文学主题：爱情。他在《猴子》《罗汉池》这两部作品中，以书写追问：“爱情可以有多好？”爱情，是他的创作核心。可是当我们跟随着袁哲生，从小说的开头缓缓地走向结局，却能隐约感觉到，作品中还存在爱情之外的种种要素，让人无法明确地言说。作为后来的读者，我们无法知道小说家是否有意如此；但能肯定的是，袁哲生确实又一次在普遍的文学主题中，写出让人值得反复寻味的作品。
☆ “‘宗教’与‘爱情’同样追随者衆，同样‘层次’丰富。”袁哲生创作后期也越来越常在作品中加入宗教色彩，本书收录的《罗汉池》将十八罗汉、贵妃观音等宗教雕像与爱情、艺术创作联系在一起，“入世的爱情”“出世的宗教”“艺术创作的本质”三者彼此结合，让《罗汉池》不同于袁哲生早期的抒情之作，小说具有的抒情意境犹如一则传说般格外深远。
☆ 一直以来潜藏在冰山下钻研短篇的袁哲生，在这部为数不多的中篇小说集里，以短篇为基础，运用不同的视角、相同的人物、类似的句子和断裂的时间，重复书写同样的故事。同时，将许多冲突省略、掩盖，静谧的氛围弥漫全书。一部“小说”，没有大量明显的冲突，也没有复杂曲折的情节，却在袁哲生的语言调动下，发展出更丰富的样貌。
◎ 内容简介
雨水不断降下，被隔绝在朦胧雨景中的爱情，让安静的眷村少年无数次来到心仪女孩梁羽玲的家门前。月亮重复升起，被笼罩在残存黄昏里的爱情，令雕刻匠建兴仔一直无法成功打造出庄严的佛像。他刻出的雕像轮廓始终近似倾心的对象小月娘，过于艳丽。
他们都是深情的人，但一往而深之后的爱情，究竟能多美好？若注定无法寻得，又能如何靠近？
◎ 名人推荐
袁哲生就像所有优秀现代小说家，尝试凭借个人语言劳动，孤自潜入存有的幽暗处，像一名最专诚的翻译者，以小说，译写出午后雨点，盛夏蝉鸣，与一切景象，所共同亲熟的本质性悲伤。使长久埋伏的，在小说里恍然兑实。另一方面，当这种纯粹悲伤，漫漶小说里一切人事时，袁哲生总使日常细节，对我们而言再度陌异了：因为袁哲生，我们竟不可能确知，人世里，什么可以“不孤独”。
—— 台湾小说家 童伟格
《猴子》《罗汉池》都是说故事，前者是较为“正常”的青少年世界（常见诸于小说）；后者则回返早年的抒情诗手法，更扩大发展至寓言空间，较为精巧地设计隐喻象征，角色寓意与情节的对比，读起来与其说有沈从文的影子，不如说更接近汪曾祺——混合《受戒》与《大淖纪事》，却是台湾前现代的世俗空间——追求诗的审美意境与救赎，接近“京派”的教义。
—— 马华文学作家 黄锦树
社会规范、道德教训与“成为一个男人的必要条件”，皆透过成长小说偷渡、传播，投射出一般人的成长过程中匮乏且无从填补的幻想，《猴子》选取传统成长小说中不会被多加着墨的普通人为叙事者，呈现另一型态的，充满挫败、不满，对传统成长小说论述幻灭的过程。
—— 台湾小说家 张耀升
◎ 获奖记录
★《猴子》获选2002年第33届台湾“吴浊流文学奖”小说正奖。
★ 作者拿下诸多台湾重要文学大奖，如“时报文学奖”“联合报文学奖”“五四文艺奖章”，同时也荣获新京报·腾讯2017年度十大好书、首届“做书奖”年度原创小说等大陆奖项。

我拥有别人认为我不该有的欲望、叛逆和力量。
我拥有会引雷霆上身的一切。
我也会劈开这一切！
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【内容简介】
神明、女巫、母亲、凡人
无视、流放、孤立、选择
毁灭者、幸存者、守护者 、重塑者
被驱逐的人、被欺侮的人、抗衡父权和神权的人
……
勇敢掌握自己命运的人！
在太阳神赫利俄斯的神殿中，喀耳刻是古怪至极的孩子——既不像她的父亲那样神性完满，也不像她的母亲那样魅惑诱人。她出生时没能得到祝福和喜爱，连亲生兄妹都排挤她，被众神拒之门外的喀耳刻只好转向凡人世界寻求理解和陪伴。在与凡人的接触中，她逐渐发掘自己的天赋——巫术，其威力甚至能威胁到众神。
宙斯恐惧她的力量，将她流放到偏远的埃亚岛。她在那里磨炼技艺、驯服野兽，并与神话世界中鼎鼎有名的角色相遇——与奥林匹斯神中极其狡诈的赫尔墨斯周旋；去往克里特岛，帮助帕西法厄收服牛头怪米诺陶诺斯；与传奇工匠代达罗斯短暂却收获巨大内心能量的露水情缘；见证美狄亚的疯狂；当然，值得浓墨重彩的还是希腊英雄奥德修斯的造访……
喀耳刻的一生，黑暗又深邃，但她并不是那绝望黑暗的一部分，而是其中奋力逃脱，以期掌控自己命运的生物。这位被弃绝的女性，灵魂如金子般闪耀，迸发出灼人的炽热和光明，用一生谱写了一曲普罗米修斯式捍卫自由的慷慨悲歌。
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【编辑推荐】
◆2012年柑橘奖得主、《阿基里斯之歌》作者马德琳•米勒最新作品
◆2019年独立选择奖得主！入围2019年女性小说奖！
◆美国图书馆协会亚历克斯奖！红触手奖！2018Elle大奖！
◆《纽约时报》畅销榜连续在榜16周，全美热卖50万册
◆ Goodreads 2018“读者选择奖”，35万读者评分，评分高达4.2
◆《卫报》《纽约时报》《独立报》《星期日邮报》《华盛顿邮报》等25家媒体年度书单！
◆HBO 改编为8集系列剧，由里克·雅法（《侏罗纪世界》）和阿曼达·西尔弗（《猩球崛起》）担任编剧
◆严歌苓力荐：世上有一种作家，能够化古老的传说为神奇的故事。她让我们不是爱上历史，而是爱上那历史里的人！这就是玛德琳·米勒。
◆让他们见识见识我们的真实面目吧！
◆我拥有别人认为我不该有的欲望、叛逆和力量。
我拥有会引雷霆上身的一切。
我也会劈开这一切！
◆向往自由的女性，为了掌握自己的命运，必须打破与生俱来的枷锁，无论是几千年前，还是现在。
◆永远不要让别人定义你，即使那个人是众神之神宙斯！
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【媒体/名人评论】
“对女神故事的一次大胆而颠覆的重构，”这本纽约时报NO.1畅销书“在神话史诗和当下的语境内，重塑了《奥德赛》中最臭名昭著的女巫形象，使之成为一个英雄形象。”
——亚历山大•阿尔特 《纽约时报》
《喀耳刻》将现代女权主义的观念赋予古典文本……看到这个喀耳刻自迷雾中浮现是令人惊叹的，她富有同情心，并且具有21世纪的行为动机。
——《时代周刊》
引人入胜……喀耳刻是属于她自己的英雄。米勒大胆开创了一个女性主义经典叙事……它的核心人物跟我们每个人一样：一位自由的女性，为了掌握自己的命运，必须打破与生俱来的枷锁，无论是几千年前，还是现在。
—— O Magazine
狂喜。彻底的狂喜。优雅细腻，真实前卫。故事跌宕起伏，汹涌澎湃。……米勒从荷马的挂毯上抖落灰尘，赋予它光亮、辉煌的色彩和纹理。一部了不起的小说。
——A.J费恩，《窗里的女人》作者
玛德琳·米勒是讲故事的大师，她使喀耳斯容光焕发，栩栩如生——并使古希腊的众神、仙女和英雄们披甲而出。丰富的细节，和如此让人喘不上气来的故事，你会被完全迷住。一部激动人心的小说。
——海伦▪西蒙森，《小矮星少校的最后一站》的作者
《喀耳刻》拥有颠覆性的魔力，这种魔力来自于米勒对美丽、冒险和重塑的敏锐眼光。通过一个与现实格格不入的女主人公的魅力，神明的世界开始鲜活，我们人的世界——它的问题、爱和羁绊——也被照亮。这本书是给所有在阅读中寻找勇气和追求的人的一份厚礼。
——艾菲尼提▪柯娜，《混血儿》的作者
充斥着女性愤怒的喧嚣：被忽视的、理想主义的或令人兴奋的矛盾声音。玛德琳·米勒在她的后续作品《喀耳刻》中反映了女权主义、修正主义的情绪，这部作品让《奥德赛》中的女巫不再是一个男人史诗中的小角色，而是她自己作品中的明星。
——克莱尔每日电讯报，年度选书评语
对于神话和前现代文学的创造性重述来说，这是重要的一年;其中最受欢迎的一部是玛德琳·米勒的《喀耳刻》，这是一部独特的抒情小说，讲述了权力、力量和责任，故事的视角是这位狡黠而又饱受误解的女神。
——艾米丽▪威尔逊，泰晤士报文学增刊，年度选书评语

In Like Life's" "eight exquisite stories, Lorrie Moore's characters stumble through their daily existence. These men and women, unsettled and adrift and often frightened, can't quite understand how they arrived at their present situations. Harry has been reworking a play for years in his apartment near Times Square in New York. Jane is biding her time at a cheese shop in a Midwest mall. Dennis, unhappily divorced, buries himself in self-help books about healthful food and healthy relationships. One prefers to speak on the phone rather than face his friends, another lets the answering machine do all the talking. But whether rejected, afraid to commit, bored, disillusioned or just misunderstood, even the most hard-bitten are not without some abiding trust in love.

A new collection of stories by one of America’s most beloved and admired short-story writers, her first in fifteen years, since Birds of America (“Fluid, cracked, mordant, colloquial . . . Will stand by itself as one of our funniest, most telling anatomies of human love and vulnerability.” —The New York Times Book Review, cover).
These eight masterly stories reveal Lorrie Moore at her most mature and in a perfect configuration of craft, mind, and bewitched spirit, as she explores the passage of time and summons up its inevitable sorrows and hilarious pitfalls to reveal her own exquisite, singular wisdom.
In “Debarking,” a newly divorced man tries to keep his wits about him as the United States prepares to invade Iraq, and against this ominous moment, we see—in all its irresistible wit and darkness—the perils of divorce and what can follow in its wake . . .
In “Foes,” a political argument goes grotesquely awry as the events of 9/11 unexpectedly manifest themselves at a fund-raising dinner in Georgetown . . . In “The Juniper Tree,” a teacher visited by the ghost of her recently deceased friend is forced to sing “The Star-Spangled Banner” in a kind of nightmare reunion . . . And in “Wings,” we watch the inevitable unraveling of two once-hopeful musicians, neither of whom held fast to their dreams nor struck out along other paths, as Moore deftly depicts the intricacies of dead-ends-ville and the workings of regret . . .
Here are people beset, burdened, buoyed; protected by raising teenage children; dating after divorce; facing the serious illness of a longtime friend; setting forth on a romantic assignation abroad, having it interrupted mid-trip, and coming to understand the larger ramifications and the impossibility of the connection . . . stories that show people coping with large dislocation in their lives, with risking a new path to answer the desire to be in relation—to someone . . .
Gimlet-eyed social observation, the public and private absurdities of American life, dramatic irony, and enduring half-cracked love wend their way through each of these narratives in a heartrending mash-up of the tragic and the laugh-out-loud—the hallmark of life in Lorrie-Moore-land.

Ever since her engagement, the strangest thing has been happening to Marian McAlpin: she can't eat.  First meat.  Then eggs, vegetables, cake, pumpkin seeds--everything!  Worse yet, she has the crazy feeling that she's being eaten.  Marian ought to feel consumed with passion, but she really just feels...consumed.  A brilliant and powerful work rich in irony and metaphor, The Edible Woman is an unforgettable masterpiece by a true master of contemporary literary fiction.

Margaret Atwood puts the human heart to the ultimate test in an utterly brilliant new novel that is as visionary as The Handmaid's Tale and as richly imagined as The Blind Assassin.
Stan and Charmaine are a married couple trying to stay afloat in the midst of an economic and social collapse. Job loss has forced them to live in their car, leaving them vulnerable to roving gangs. They desperately need to turn their situation around—and fast. The Positron Project in the town of Consilience seems to be the answer to their prayers. No one is unemployed and everyone gets a comfortable, clean house to live in . . . for six months out of the year. On alternating months, residents of Consilience must leave their homes and function as inmates in the Positron prison system. Once their month of service in the prison is completed, they can return to their "civilian" homes.
At first, this doesn't seem like too much of a sacrifice to make in order to have a roof over one's head and food to eat. But when Charmaine becomes romantically involved with the man who lives in their house during the months when she and Stan are in the prison, a series of troubling events unfolds, putting Stan's life in danger. With each passing day, Positron looks less like a prayer answered and more like a chilling prophecy fulfilled.

From one of the most important contemporary American writers, Cardiff, by the Sea is a bold, haunting collection of four previously unpublished novellas. In the titular novella, an academic in Pennsylvania discovers a terrifying trauma from her past after inheriting a house in Cardiff, Maine from someone she has never heard of. Mia, the protagonist of "Miao Dao," is a pubescent girl overcome with loneliness, who befriends a feral cat that becomes her protector from the increasingly aggressive males that surround her.
A brilliant but shy college sophomore realizes that she is pregnant in "Phan-tomwise: 1972." Distraught, she allows a distinguished visiting professor to take her under his wing, though it quickly becomes evident that he is interested in more than an academic mentorship. Lastly, "The Surviving Child" is Stefan, who was spared when his mother, a famous poet, killed his sister and herself. Stefan's father remarries, but his young wife is haunted by dead poet's voice dancing in the wind, an inexplicably befouled well, and a compulsive draw to the same gar-age that took two lives.
In these psychologically daring, chillingly suspenseful pieces, Joyce Carol Oates writes about women facing threats past and present.

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning and best-selling author: a captivating, brilliantly imaginative story of three extraordinary animals--and a young boy--whose lives intersect in Paris.
Paras, short for "Perestroika," is a spirited racehorse at a racetrack west of Paris. One afternoon at dusk, she finds the door of her stall open and--she's a curious filly--wanders all the way to the City of Light. She's dazzled and often mystified by the sights, sounds, and smells around her, but she isn't afraid.
Soon she meets an elegant dog, a German shorthaired pointer named Frida, who knows how to get by without attracting the attention of suspicious Parisians. Paras and Frida coexist for a time in the city's lush green spaces, nourished by Frida's strategic trips to the vegetable market. They keep company with two irrepressible ducks and an opinionated raven. But then Paras meets a human boy, Etienne, and discovers a new, otherworldly part of Paris: the ivy-walled house where the boy and his nearly-one-hundred-year-old great-grandmother live in seclusion.
As the cold weather and Christmas near, the unlikeliest of friendships bloom. But how long can a runaway horse stay undiscovered in Paris? How long can a boy keep her hidden and all to himself? Jane Smiley's beguiling new novel is itself an adventure that celebrates curiosity, ingenuity, and the desire of all creatures for true love and freedom.

That Mad Ache , set in high-society Paris in the mid-1960’s, recounts the emotional battle unleashed in the heart of Lucile, a sensitive but rootless young woman who finds herself caught between her carefree, tranquil love for 50-year-old Charles, a gentle, reflective, and well-off businessman, and her sudden wild passion for 30-year-old Antoine, a hot-blooded, impulsive, and struggling editor. As Lucile explores these two versions of love, she vacillates in confusion, but in the end she must choose, and her heart’s instinct is surprising and poignant. Originally published under the title La Chamade , this new translation by Douglas Hofstadter returns a forgotten classic to English. In Translator, Trader , Douglas Hofstadter reflects on his personal act of devotion in rewriting Françoise Sagan’s novel La Chamade in English, and on the paradoxes that constantly plague any literary translator on all scales, ranging from the humblest of commas to entire chapters. Flatly rejecting the common wisdom that translators are inevitably traitors, Hofstadter proposes instead that translators are traders, and that translation, like musical performance, deserves high respect as a creative act. In his view, literary translation is the art of making subtle trades in which one sometimes loses and sometimes gains, often both losing and gaining at the same time. This view implies that there is no reason a translation cannot be as good as the original work, and that the result inevitably bears the stamp of the translator, much as a musical performance inevitably bears the stamp of its artists. Both a companion to the beloved Sagan novel and a singular meditation on translation, Translator, Trader is a witty and intimate exploration of words, ideas, communication, creation, and faithfulness.

* “安托万爱你是为了跟你在一起。他想跟你在一起得到幸福，那是他那种年龄的想法。而我，我想要的是让你幸福，独立于我的幸福。我只有等待了。” *
妩媚、聪慧的吕茜尔与有钱人夏尔同居，共享优裕的生活和体面的朋友圈。在一次社交晚宴上，吕茜尔认识了出版社编辑安托万，两人的默契逐渐转化为恋情。安托万要求吕茜尔做出选择，吕茜尔决定离开夏尔。夏尔自认看透了爱情的真相，笃信她会回来。

本书收录了勒克莱齐奥于2014年出版的两部中篇小说。在这两个都与海有关的故事里，大海参与了主人公命运里的意外、失踪、暴力，也见证了主人公的成长与回归。
《暴雨》的故事发生在日本海的一座小岛上。克约曾是一位随军记者，三十年前，他的女伴玛丽随他上岛，而后谜一般地消失在大海里。三十年后，他带着沉重的秘密重返海岛，打算在这里结束噩梦。十三岁的女孩俊娜没有父亲，跟着母亲在岛上生活。尽管被别的孩子排挤，俊娜总能在海边找到安慰。她想成为母亲那样的海女，但母亲却希望她走向更宽广的天地。约克和俊娜在岛上相遇了，阴暗与纯真相互纠缠，两人窥探彼此的心事与渴望，然后继续各自的人生。
在《没有身份的女孩》里，主人公拉切尔幼年丧母，富有的父亲早早再婚，继母刻薄冷漠，同父异母的妹妹是她生活里唯一的温情。由于破产和战乱，一家人从非洲搬到了法国。在巴黎，拉切尔过上了更加浪荡、叛逆的生活，遇见了青涩的爱情，还见到了自己的生母，最后，她选择再次回到非洲，回到海边。从拉切尔的自述中，我们将看到“没有身份”的女孩如何看待周遭世界，如何接受命运并在命运中行动。

Augustine, a brilliant, aging astronomer, is consumed by the stars. For years he has lived in remote outposts, studying the sky for evidence of how the universe began. At his latest posting, in a research center in the Arctic, news of a catastrophic event arrives. The scientists are forced to evacuate, but Augustine stubbornly refuses to abandon his work. Shortly after the others have gone, Augustine discovers a mysterious child, Iris, and realizes the airwaves have gone silent. They are alone.
At the same time, Mission Specialist Sullivan is aboard the Aether on its return flight from Jupiter. The astronauts are the first human beings to delve this deep into space, and Sully has made peace with the sacrifices required of her: a daughter left behind, a marriage ended. So far the journey has been a success, but when Mission Control falls inexplicably silent, Sully and her crew mates are forced to wonder if they will ever get home.
As Augustine and Sully each face an uncertain future against forbidding yet beautiful landscapes, their stories gradually intertwine in a profound and unexpected conclusion. In crystalline prose, Good Morning, Midnight poses the most important questions: What endures at the end of the world? How do we make sense of our lives?

本书中收录的十四个短篇小说从女性经验和视角出发，广泛探讨了女性在成长中遇到的问题，内容涉及强奸、婚外恋、肥胖、分娩等与女性密切相关的现实际遇。阿特伍德以其极富原创力的节制笔调，拼接起幻想、幽默乃至暴力的片段，结合写实、内心独白与蒙太奇的运用，以她的故事揭示了人类关系的复杂性，为她笔下深切打动读者的人物注入生命，唤起惶恐与笑声，共情与认同，表现出现代社会中女性越来越复杂的内心世界和她们面对由男人主导的外部世界时迥然各异的心绪。

In eighteenth-century Germany, the impetuous student of philosophy who will later gain fame as the Romantic poet Novalis seeks his father's permission to wed his true philosophy -- a plain, simple child named Sophie. The attachment shocks his family and friends. This brilliant young man, betrothed to a twelve-year-old dullard How can it be? A literary sensation and a bestseller in England and the United States, The Blue Flower was one of eleven books- and the only paperback- chosen as an Editor's Choice by the New York Times Book Review. The 1997 National Book Critics Circle Award Winner in Fiction.

My name is Peter Grant and until January I was just probationary constable in that mighty army for justice known to all right-thinking people as the Metropolitan Police Service (as the Filth to everybody else). My only concerns in life were how to avoid a transfer to the Case Progression Unit - we do paperwork so real coppers don't have to - and finding a way to climb into the panties of the outrageously perky WPC Leslie May. Then one night, in pursuance of a murder inquiry, I tried to take a witness statement from someone who was dead but disturbingly voluable, and that brought me to the attention of Inspector Nightingale, the last wizard in England. Now I'm a Detective Constable and a trainee wizard, the first apprentice in fifty years, and my world has become somewhat more complicated: nests of vampires in Purley, negotiating a truce between the warring god and goddess of the Thames, and digging up graves in Covent Garden ...and there's something festering at the heart of the city I love, a malicious vengeful spirit that takes ordinary Londoners and twists them into grotesque mannequins to act out its drama of violence and despair. The spirit of riot and rebellion has awakened in the city, and it's falling to me to bring order out of chaos - or die trying.

The diverse stories of Beautiful Days, Joyce Carol Oates explore the most secret, intimate, and unacknowledged interior lives of characters not unlike ourselves, who assert their independence in acts of bold and often irrevocable defiance.
“Fleuve Bleu” exemplifies the rich sensuousness of Oates’s prose as lovers married to other persons vow to establish, in their intimacy, a ruthlessly honest, truth-telling authenticity missing elsewhere in their complicated lives, with unexpected results.
In “Big Burnt,” set on lushly rendered Lake George, in the Adirondacks, a cunningly manipulative university professor exploits a too-trusting woman in a way she could never have anticipated. “The Nice Girl” depicts a young woman who has been, through her life, infuriatingly “nice,” until she is forced to come to terms with the raw desperation of her deepest self. In a more experimental but no less intimate mode, “Les beaux jours” examines the ambiguities of an intensely erotic, exploitative relationship between a “master” artist and his adoring young female model. And the tragic “Undocumented Alien” depicts a young African student enrolled in an American university who is suddenly stripped of his student visa and forced to undergo a terrifying test of courage.
In these stories, as elsewhere in her fiction, Joyce Carol Oates exhibits her fascination with the social, psychological, and moral boundaries that govern our behavior—until the hour when they do not.