Elizabeth Gilbert's short stories roam from Wyoming to New York City, from Minnesota to Texas. With humor and dignity, Gilbert explores the revelations of diverse and memorable characters, each pursuing a singular American pilgrimage. A tough East Coast girl dares a western cowboy to run off into the Rocky Mountains with her. A family of Hungarian-immigrant magicians struggle for redemption in Pittsburgh. A dying old woman contentedly surveys her lifetime of promiscuity. On an impossible and tragic quest for honor, an ignorant laborer runs for president of his mafia-controlled union.
It has been ten years since Jeanie Long was charged with the murder of fifteen-year-old Abigail Mantel. Now residents of the East Yorkshire village of Elvet are disturbed to hear of new evidence proving Jeanie's innocence. Abigail's killer is still at large.For one young woman, Emma Bennett, the revelation brings back haunting memories of her vibrant best friend--and of that fearful winter's day when she had discovered her body lying cold in a ditch.As Inspector Vera Stanhope makes fresh enquiries on the peninsula and villagers are hauled back to a time they hoped to forget, tensions begin to mount. But are people afraid of the killer or of their own guilty pasts?With each person's story revisited, the Inspector begins to suspect that some deadly secrets are threatening to unfurl.
It's 3 a.m. and Elizabeth Gilbert is sobbing on the bathroom floor. She's in her thirties, she has a husband, a house, they're trying for a baby - and she doesn't want any of it. A bitter divorce and a turbulent love affair later, she emerges battered and bewildered and realises it is time to pursue her own journey in search of three things she has been missing: pleasure, devotion and balance. So she travels to Rome, where she learns Italian from handsome, brown-eyed identical twins and gains twenty-five pounds, an ashram in India, where she finds that enlightenment entails getting up in the middle of the night to scrub the temple floor, and Bali where a toothless medicine man of indeterminate age offers her a new path to peace: simply sit still and smile. And slowly happiness begins to creep up on her.
New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Weiner’s unforgettable story of adjusting to suburbia—and all the surprises hidden behind its doors.For Kate Klein, a semi-accidental mother of three, suburbia has been full of unpleasant surprises. Her once-loving husband is hardly ever home. The supermommies on the playground routinely snub her. Her days are spent carpooling and enduring endless games of Candy Land, and at night, most of her orgasms are of the do-it-yourself variety.When a fellow mother is murdered, Kate finds that the unsolved mystery is the most exciting thing to happen in Upchurch, Connecticut, since her neighbors broke ground for a guesthouse and cracked their septic tank. Even though the local police chief warns her that crime-fighting's a job best left to the professionals, Kate launches an unofficial investigation -- from 8:45 to 11:30 on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, when her kids are in nursery school.As Kate is drawn deeper into the murdered woman's past, she begins to uncover the secrets and lies behind Upchurch's picket-fence facade -- and considers the choices and compromises all modern women make as they navigate between marriage and independence, small towns and big cities, being a mother and having a life of one's own.
Op haar 26e heeft Rachel Carter een veelbelovende carrière voor zich en woont ze in een luxe flat met de man van haar dromen. Het leven lacht haar van alle kanten toe. Toch weet niemand wat ze heeft moeten doorstaan om zo ver te komen. Nooit heeft ze iemand verteld over de gebeurtenissen in die lange hete zomer, lang geleden. Een zomer vol geheimen die slechts één iemand kent: Sophie Townsend, ooit haar beste vriendin en nu haar grootste vijand. Dan duikt na 15 jaar Sophie plotseling weer op in Rachels leven. Het is een gebeurtenis die haar leven uit balans brengt en het verleden weer akelig dicht aan de oppervlakte brengt. Vanaf dat moment kan Rachel aan nog maar één ding denken: wraak!
Ruim tien jaar geleden besloot de Indiase auteur Pankaj Mishra, die op dat moment in een klein huisje in de Himalaya woonde, een boek te schrijven over de Boeddha. In De Boeddha in de wereld beschrijft hij zijn fascinerende speurtocht naar de betekenis van het boeddhisme, die hem leidt naar kleine stadjes in India, maar ook naar Kashmir en Pakistan. Hij onderzoekt de mythen rond het leven van de Boeddha en bespreekt de ontdekking door de westerse wereld van het boeddhisme in de negentiende eeuw.