I had known about Ocean Vuong primarily through his poetry, so when I happened upon this book serendipitously, I was immediately drawn to it. The story is heartwarming and sad and so many other things simultaneously, as life often is. The language is so beautiful, I cried.
Longlisted for the 2019 National Book Award for Fiction, the Carnegie Medal in Fiction, the 2019 Aspen Words Literacy Prize, and the PEN/Hemingway Debut Novel Award
Shortlisted for the 2019 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize
Winner of the 2019 New England Book Award for Fiction!
Named one of the most anticipated books of 2019 by Vulture, Entertainment Weekly, Buzzfeed, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Oprah.com, Huffington Post, The A.V. Club, Nylon, The Week, The Rumpus, The Millions, The Guardian, Publishers Weekly, and more.
"A lyrical work of self-discovery that's shockingly intimate and insistently…
This book made me happy. I think I smiled the entire time I was reading it. It's about love, and the power of friendship, and both the pain of loss and the joy of remembrance. Honestly, it's the one book I read this year I believe everyone should read.
A Most Anticipated Book of 2025: Goodreads •USA TODAY • Marie Claire • BookPage • Literary Lifestyle •Book Riot •Sunset Magazine • Totally Booked with Zibby Owens * A Fallon Book Club Pick
The #1 New York Times bestselling author of Anxious People returns with an unforgettably funny, deeply moving tale of four teenagers whose friendship creates a bond so powerful that it changes a complete stranger's life twenty-five years later.
Most people don't even notice them—three tiny figures sitting at the end of a long pier in the corner of one of…
I read somewhere that the modern novel as we know it began with "Middlemarch." That feels right, despite its omniscient narrator and the differences between the social conventions of the day and our current times. As a novelist, I appreciated the way Eliot juggled so many characters and plot lines and wrapped them up in such a satisfying way. It's a big book, for sure, but so worth it. I can't imagine why I waited so long to read it.
Introduction and Notes by Doreen Roberts, Rutherford College, University of Kent at Canterbury.
Middlemarch is a complex tale of idealism, disillusion, profligacy, loyalty and frustrated love. This penetrating analysis of the life of an English provincial town during the time of social unrest prior to the Reform Bill of 1832 is told through the lives of Dorothea Brooke and Dr Tertius Lydgate and includes a host of other paradigm characters who illuminate the condition of English life in the mid-nineteenth century.
Henry James described Middlemarch as a 'treasurehouse of detail' while Virginia Woolf famously endorsed George Eliot's masterpiece…
Poetry professor Mimi Jones stands as best woman when her ex-husband remarries, an honor that comes with the dubious delight of seeing her former in-laws. Mimi expects snide comments about her and her plus one, Philly detective Mike Quinn, from Daniel’s parents and famous playwright sister. But a wedding reception that serves up plagiarism claims, accusations of infidelity, and flying bullets, followed days later by murder? That’s a hangover nobody wants.
