Jonathan Franzen Books

Set in East Berlin, this satirical novel blends humor and poignancy, capturing the absurdities of life in a divided city. Its vivid characters navigate a landscape filled with challenges, evoking both laughter and deep emotion. Critics praise its brilliance, highlighting the author's ability to tackle serious themes while maintaining a light-hearted tone. The narrative promises a unique exploration of resilience and the human spirit against the backdrop of a significant historical context.

"Crossroads is the first novel in Jonathan Franzen's A Key to All Mythologies. The trilogy tells the story of a Midwestern family across three generations, mirroring the preoccupations and dilemmas of the United States from the Vietnam War to the 2020s"

From the National Book Award-winning author of "The Corrections," a collection of essays that reveal him to be one of our sharpest, toughest, and most entertaining social critics While the essays in this collection range in subject matter from the sex-advice industry to the way a supermax prison works, each one wrestles with the essential themes of Franzen's writing: the erosion of civil life and private dignity; and the hidden persistence of loneliness in postmodern, imperial America. Reprinted here for the first time is Franzen's controversial l996 investigation of the fate of the American novel in what became known as "the Harper's essay," as well as his award-winning narrative of his father's struggle with Alzheimer's disease, and a rueful account of his brief tenure as an Oprah Winfrey author.

At once a searing indictment of corporate culture, a story of a young man confronting his past and future with honesty, and a testament to the enduring power of family, The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit is a deeply rewarding novel about the importance of taking responsibility for one's own life."--BOOK JACKET.

Korean edition of THE CORRECTIONS: A Novel by Jonathan Franzen, the winner of the 2001 National Book Award for Fiction. Author Franzen deftly sketches a portrait of the modern American dysfunctional family and marriage. In Korean. Annotation copyright Tsai Fong Books, Inc. Distributed by Tsai Fong Books, Inc.

Patty and Walter Berglund are the new pioneers of St. Paul, embodying the gentrifying spirit of the Whole Foods generation. Patty is the ideal neighbor, knowledgeable and supportive, while Walter, an environmental lawyer and devoted family man, shares her vision of building a better world. However, as the new millennium unfolds, the Berglunds become enigmatic figures. Their teenage son has moved in with the politically conservative family next door, and Walter has taken a job with Big Coal, raising questions about their values. Richard Katz, Walter's college friend and rival, remains a persistent presence in their lives. Most troubling is Patty's transformation from a bright community figure to an unrecognizable "Fury," unraveling before their neighbors. This novel, Franzen's first since The Corrections, explores contemporary love and marriage, capturing the complexities of freedom. It addresses the temptations of teenage desire, the compromises of middle age, and the challenges of suburban life. Through the characters' struggles and triumphs, the narrative offers a poignant and powerful reflection on modern existence, revealing the burdens and joys of navigating an increasingly confusing world.

"Young Pip Tyler doesn't know who she is. She knows that her real name is Purity, that she's saddled with $130,000 in student debt, that she's squatting with anarchists in Oakland, and that her relationship with her mother -- her only family -- is hazardous. But she doesn't have a clue who her father is, why her mother chose to live as a recluse with an invented name, or how she'll ever have a normal life. Enter the Germans. A glancing encounter with a German peace activist leads Pip to an internship in South America with The Sunlight Project, an organization that traffics in all the secrets of the world -- including, Pip hopes, the secret of her origins. TSP is the brainchild of Andreas Wolf, a charismatic provocateur who rose to fame in the chaos following the fall of the Berlin Wall. Now on the lam in Bolivia, Andreas is drawn to Pip for reasons she doesn't understand, and the intensity of her response to him upends her conventional ideas of right and wrong."--Jacket

The new book of essays from Jonathan Franzen, author of Freedom.

A magnum opus for our morally complex times from the author ofFreedom. Purity Tyler, known to all as Pip, is an outspoken, forthright young woman struggling to make a life for herself. She sleeps in an rickety commune in Oakland. She's in love with an unavailable older man and is saddled with staggering college debt. She has a crazy mother and doesn't know who her father is. A chance encounter leads her to an internship in South America with the world-famous Sunlight Project, the president of which is Andreas Wolf, a charismatic genius who grew up privileged but disaffected in the German Democratic Republic. Like numerous women before her, she becomes obsessed with Andreas, and they have an intense, unsettling relationship. Eventually, he finds her work back in the United States. What lies underneath is a wild tale of hidden identities, secret wealth, neurotic fidelity, sociopathy, and murder. The truth of Pip's parentage lies at the centre of this maelstrom, but before it is resolved Franzen takes us from the rain-drenched forests of northern California, to paranoid East Berlin before the fall of the Wall, to the paradisiacal mountain valleys of Bolivia, exposing us to the vagaries of radical politics, the problematic seductions of the internet, and the no-holds-barred war between the sexes. Featuring an unforgettable cast of inimitable Franzenian characters, Purity is deeply troubling, richly moving, and hilarious.

The author presents his 1996 work, "The Harper's Essay," offering additional writings that consider a central theme of the erosion of civic life and private dignity and the increasing persistence of loneliness in postmodern American.