Showing titles in City Life

Given the initials F.A.D. at birth, Fiona Alison Duncan has always had an eye for observing the trends around her. But after years of trying to please others, looking for answers in books and astrological charts, and clocking endless hours as a celebrity journalist just to make rent, Fiona discovers another way of existing: in the Real, a phenomenological state few humans live in.

England, 1940. Only given two days leave after barely escaping Nazi troops in Paris, Lily Baker visits her fiancé’s family and is dismayed to learn he’s still missing in action. And going from an exciting overseas telephonist post to a routine office assignment leaves her bored… until the Blitz begins. Joining the Air Raid Protection service, Lily’s perilous new role puts her on the chaotic frontlines of deadly shelling and scared crowds turning hostile. But despite her heroism, she is plagued by guilt when she starts feeling attracted to a fellow A.R.P. member.

Thirtysomething Page was content with her life in New York City - until it went to the dogs. Unceremoniously dumped by her boyfriend of four years and fired from her art gallery job in the same week, she flees to Washington, DC, and moves in with her big brother. She hopes the new setting and familial comfort will help her finally find her bearings. What Page finds instead is an unlikely refuge: a park for the neighborhood’s poshest pooches, and a quirky pack of companionable dog-run regulars who become fast friends.

Already an international sensation, The Wonders follows Maria and Alicia through the streets of Madrid, from job to job and apartment to apartment, as they search for meaning and stability in a precarious world and unknowingly trace each other’s footfalls across time.

A frustrated lawyer finds release where she least expects it - and where she needs it most - in this exhilarating, sexy romp through the finest gluten-free indulgences in a New York City grocery store. After another long workday, the only thing Meredith wants is a big bowl of paleo maple-pecan coconola. But the hour-long checkout line at 7:00 p.m. at an all-organic supermarket stands between her and satisfaction, and the yupster mob is working her last nerve. Then, out of nowhere, a spontaneous flirtation with a stranger shows her there’s a lot more than coconola waiting for her.

When Mariana Rivas arrives from Spain to work as an au pair in the Dublin home of the Mac Converys, Garda Inspector Fionn Mac Convery tries to seduce her. In the course of avoiding Fionn, Mariana experiences the mean streets of Dublin city and meets some of the characters who, in his ambitious rise in the police force, have been damaged by him.

Garrett Adams, an uptight behavioral psychology professor who refuses to embrace the 1960s, is in a slump. As he sits at a New York City bar watching the Yanks strike out, he knows he needs a change. At a Columbus Circle bookstore he meets a mysterious young woman, Daphne, who draws him into the turbulent and exciting world of Vietnam War protest politics and the music of Bob Dylan and the Beatles. He starts to emerge from the numbness and grief over his father’s death in World War II.

A disillusioned nurse suddenly learns how to care. An injured young sportsman wakes up find that he can see only in black and white. A desperate old widower takes too many pills and believes that two angels have arrived to usher him through purgatory. Two agoraphobic men called Dave share the symptoms of a brain tumour, and frequently waken their neighbour with their ongoing rows. Separate lives, running in parallel, destined to collide and then explode.

This is a story of a London you won’t find in any guidebooks. This is a story about what it’s like to exist in the moment, about boys too eager to become men, growing up in the hidden war zones of big cities - and the girls trying to make it their own way. This is a story of reputations made and lost, of violence and vengeance - and never counting the cost. This is a story of concrete towers and blank-eyed windows, of endless nights in police stations and prison cells, of brotherhood and betrayal.

On the eve of the Occupy Wall Street protests, C is flat broke. Once a renowned textile artist, she’s now the sole proprietor of an arts supply store in Lower Manhattan. Divorced, alone, at loose ends, C is stuck with a struggling business, a stack of bills, a new erotic interest in her oldest girlfriend, and a persistent hallucination in the form of a rogue garden gnome with a pointed interest in systems collapse. Replaying recent history through a distorting glass, The Visitors charts the last days of a broken status quo as the path is cleared for something new.

Danny Byrne has grown up on a sprawling council estate in Pimlico. He knows every stone of it, and until now, his life has followed the same pattern as all his friends. Danny is heading for A-levels and then university. Dodds is following his dad into the family butcher’s business, Crockett will sail on opportunity’s wings as it comes his way, and Nobby is flirting with drugs, and disaster. As the long summer unfolds, the boys focus on girls, trade banter and test their friendships to the limit. When things take a darker turn, Danny must wrestle with his conscience.

Present-day. American movie star Patrick and British bookseller Will’s worlds collide when Patrick comes to the UK to shoot a blockbuster superhero movie, in which he plays the starring role. Patrick’s life as a Hollywood celebrity may be glamorous, but it’s all an act: his contract obliges him into play up to his status as a public sex symbol, which means he can’t let anyone find out that he’s gay.

A poignant, highly original novel about an author whose relationship with his very famous book editor will change him forever.... After years of struggling as a writer in 1990s New York City, James Smale finally gets his big break when his novel sells to an editor at a major publishing house: none other than Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Jackie, or Mrs. Onassis as she's known in the office, loves James' candidly autobiographical novel about his own dysfunctional family.

In an Ireland doubly ravaged by war and disease, Nurse Julia Power works at an understaffed hospital in the city center, where expectant mothers who have come down with the terrible new flu are quarantined together. Into Julia’s regimented world step two outsiders - Doctor Kathleen Lynn, on the run from the police, and a young volunteer helper, Bridie Sweeney. In the darkness and intensity of this tiny ward, over three days, these women change each other’s lives in unexpected ways. They lose patients to this baffling pandemic, but they also shepherd new life into a fearful world.

This richly imagined collage of interconnected stories follows Prosperous and Agu and the motley community of Nigerian expats who gather at their apartment each week. Their reality is one of dashed hopes, twisted love, and the pain of homesickness, even as they fight to make their way in this new world. Better Never than Late is a layered and affecting portrayal of the everyday absurdities and adversities of migrant life.

We live in a city on a river. Our city is called New America, and our river is the river Styx. We don’t know how the river got this name, but it is a very wide body of water and, they say, on the other side of the river are some very bad people. We have been at war with them all our lives and almost all the news we receive is about the war and how our Supreme Leader is winning it. We give the bodies of our young to fight this war and some never return. They are lost in the greyness on the other side of the river. We never think about losing them because they don’t know their parents, ...

In the early '90s, Scarlet, a painter and high fashion model, finds herself working in some of the world’s most famous fashion capitals. As her adventure continues, she meets Johnny of The Westies, an up-and-coming band on the cusp of superstardom. What ensues is an unhinged ride of a novel following the audacious lead female protagonist as she navigates her life through fame, addiction, infidelity, and all the ups and downs of dating a legendary musician from one of the biggest rock bands in history.

Carlo and Margherita: a happily married couple in their mid-thirties. They are in love, but they also harbour desires that stray beyond the confines of their bedroom: Carlo longs for the quiet beauty of one of his students, Sofia; Margherita fantasises about her physiotherapist, Andrea. Love, with its unassuming power, ultimately pulls them from the brink, but after eight years of repressed desires and the birth of a son, when the past resurfaces in the form of books sent anonymously, will love be enough to save them?

Maria, a trans woman in her 30s, is going nowhere. She spends her aimless days working in a New York bookstore, trying to remain true to a punk ethos while drinking herself into a stupor and having a variety of listless and confusing sexual encounters. After her girlfriend cheats on her, Maria steals her car and heads for the Pacific, embarking on her version of the Great American Road Trip.

Jordi Viassolo consigue un trabajo de becario - temporal y mal pagado - en una agencia de detectives de Barcelona. La misión que le encargan es simple: mantener el despacho abierto durante el verano sin meterse en líos. Todo cambia cuando aparece un cliente desesperado asegurando que su mujer ha desaparecido.