Heidi Zerning Books

The runaway of the title story is a young woman who, though she thinks she wants to, is incapable of leaving her husband. In “Passion,” a country girl emerging into the larger world via a job in a resort hotel discovers in a single moment of stunning insight the limits and lies of that mysterious emotion. Three stories are about a woman named Juliet–in the first, she escapes from teaching at a girls’ school into a wild and irresistible love match; in the second she returns with her child to the home of her parents, whose life and marriage she finally begins to examine; and in the last, her child, caught, she mistakenly thinks, in the grip of a religious cult, vanishes into an unexplained and profound silence. In the final story, “Powers,” a young woman with the ability to read the future sets off a chain of events that involves her husband-to-be and a friend in a lifelong pursuit of what such a gift really means, and who really has it. Throughout this compelling collection, Alice Munro’s understanding of the people about whom she writes makes them as vivid as our own neighbors. Here are the infinite betrayals and surprises of love–between men and women, between friends, between parents and children–that are the stuff of all our lives. It is Alice Munro’s special gift to make these stories as vivid and real as our own.

Often compared to Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale and Naomi Alderman's The Power - Woman on the Edge of Time has been hailed as a classic of speculative science fiction. Disturbing and forward thinking, Marge Piercy's remarkable novel will speak to a new generation of readers.

Alice Munro mines her rich family background, melding it with her own experiences and the transforming power of her brilliant imagination, to create perhaps her most powerful and personal collection yet. A young boy, taken to Edinburgh’s Castle Rock to look across the sea to America, catches a glimpse of his father’s dream. Scottish immigrants experience love and loss on a journey that leads them to rural Ontario. Wives, mothers, fathers, and children move through uncertainty, ambivalence, and contemplation in these stories of hopes, adversity, and wonder. The View from Castle Rock reveals what is most essential in Munro’s art: her compassionate understanding of ordinary lives.

East-Chicago, 1960: Daniel Price ist siebzehn und schließt gerade zusammen mit seinen Freunden Larry und Billy die Highschool ab. Die Zukunft wartet auf sie, aber sie haben keine Ahnung, wie sie aussehen wird. Vor ihnen liegt ein Sommer der Entscheidungen, und viel schneller als erwartet trennen sich ihre Wege: Billy wählt das ruhige Leben in East-Chicago, Larry die Revolte, und Daniel bleibt zunächst unentschlossen. Das ändert sich schlagartig, als er sich in die unergründliche Rachel verliebt. Sie ist für ihn das Versprechen der großen weiten Welt, die Flucht aus den Konflikten seiner schönen, exotisch anmutenden Mutter mit seinem krebskranken und verbitterten Vater. Doch Daniels Liebesglück ist überschattet von einem Geheimnis Rachels, das ihn immer tiefer in den Sog seiner widersprüchlichen Gefühle zieht. 'Nichts anderes als eine kleine literarische Sensation: Selten wurden die seelischen und körperlichen Qualen der ersten Liebe bewegender beschrieben als in diesem Roman.' NZZ

Dimensions; Fiction; Wenlock Edge; Deep-Holes; Free radicals; Face; Some Women; Child's Play; Wood; Too Much Happiness

House of Flowers, A Diamond Guitar, and A Christmas Memory are included with the tale of a fun-loving amoral playgirl in New York City.

A lost treasure only recently found, Truman Capote's Summer Crossing is a precocious, confident first novel from one of the twentieth century's greatest writers. Set in New York just after World War II, the story follows a young carefree socialite, Grady McNeil, whose parents leave her alone in their Fifth Avenue penthouse for the summer. Left to her own devices, Grady turns up the heat on the secret affair she's been having with a Brooklyn-born Jewish war veteran who works as a parking lot attendant. As the season passes, the romance turns more serious and morally ambiguous, and Grady must eventually make a series of decisions that will forever affect her life and the lives of everyone around her.