Jennifer Egan Livres

Cranford is Elizabeth Gaskell's gently comic picture of life and manners in an English country village during the 1830s. It describes the small adventures in the lives of two middle-aged sisters in reduced circumstances, Matilda and Deborah Jenkyns, who do their best to maintain their standards of propriety, decency, and kindness. At the center of the novel is Miss Matty, whose warm heart and tender ways compel affection and regard from everyone around her. Also revealed are the foibles and attributes of the pompous Mrs. Jamieson and her awesome butler, the genial Captain Brown, the loyal housemaid Martha, and others. Using an intimate, gossipy voice that never turns sentimental, Gaskell skillfully conveys the old-fashioned habits, subtle class distinctions, and genteel poverty of the townspeople. Cranford is one of the author's best-loved works.

Presents twenty of the best works of short fiction of the past year from a variety of acclaimed sources.

With music pulsing on every page, "A Visit from the Goon Squad" is a startling, exhilarating novel of self-destruction and redemption.

The theme of longing in all its forms-for change, for redemption, for travel outside the bounds of daily life to realms where anything seems possible--unites this master story collection. In the extraordinary "Why China?" a man drags his family to the Xi'an province in a desperate attempt to reclaim his lost integrity, only to find himself more remote and mysterious than the place where his journey led. In settings as exotic as Kenya and Bora Bora, as glamorous as downtown Manhattan, or as familiar as suburban Illinois, Egan's characters--models, housewives, schoolgirls--seek transformation of the body and spirit, and transcendence of the borders of desire."

It's 2010. Staggeringly successful and brilliant tech entrepreneur Bix Bouton is desperate for a new idea. He's forty, with four kids, and restless when he stumbles into a conversation with mostly Columbia professors, one of whom is experimenting with downloading or "externalising" memory. Within a decade, Bix's new technology, Own Your Unconscious--that allows you access to every memory you've ever had, and to share every memory in exchange for access to the memories of others--has seduced multitudes. But not everyone. In spellbinding linked narratives, Egan spins out the consequences of Own Your Unconscious through the lives of multiple characters whose paths intersect over several decades. Intellectually dazzling and extraordinarily moving, The Candy House is a bold, brilliant imagining of a world that is moments away. With a focus on social media, gaming, and alternate worlds, you can almost experience moving among dimensions in a role-playing game. Egan takes her "deeply intuitive forays into the darker aspects of our technology-driven, image-saturated culture" (Vogue) to stunning new heights and delivers a fierce and exhilarating testament to the tenacity and transcendence of human longing for real connection, love, family, privacy and redemption.[Bokinfo].

Manhattan Beach opens in Brooklyn during the Great Depression. Anna Kerrigan, nearly twelve years old, accompanies her father to the house of Dexter Styles, a man who, she gleans, is crucial to the survival of her father and her family. Years later, her father has disappeared and the country is at war. Anna works at the Brooklyn Naval Yard, where women are allowed to hold jobs that had always belonged to men. She becomes the first female diver, the most dangerous and exclusive of occupations, repairing the ships that will help America win the war. She is the sole provider for her mother, a farm girl who had a brief and glamorous career with the Ziegfeld Follies, and her lovely, severely disabled sister. At a nightclub, she chances to meet Dexter Styles again, and she begins to understand the complexity of her father's life, the reasons he might have vanished"--

In Jennifer Egan's highly acclaimed first novel, set in 1978, the political drama and familial tensions of the 1960s form a backdrop for the world of Phoebe O'Connor, age eighteen. Phoebe is obsessed with the memory and death of her sister Faith, a beautiful idealistic hippie who died in Italy in 1970. In order to find out the truth about Faith's life and death, Phoebe retraces her steps from San Francisco across Europe, a quest which yields both complex and disturbing revelations about family, love, and Faith's lost generation. This spellbinding novel introduced Egan's remarkable ability to tie suspense with deeply insightful characters and the nuances of emotion.

In a captivating narrative, Jennifer Egan explores a world where escape is unattainable, and the tower symbolizes both the ultimate sanctuary and a necessary sacrifice for survival. The story delves into themes of protection and the difficult choices faced in dire circumstances, highlighting the tension between clinging to safety and the need to let go for the sake of life. Egan's masterful storytelling brings this complex emotional landscape to life, engaging readers in a profound examination of resilience and sacrifice.

Recently recovered from a catastrophic car accident, fashion model Charlotte Swenson returns to life in Manhattan. Her beautiful face conceals eighty titanium screws that hold together her shattered bones. Charlotte, now unrecognizable to those who knew her before the accident, begins to float invisibly away from her former life and into an ephemeral world of fashion nightclubs and Internet projects, where image and reality blur. "Look at Me" is both a satire of our image-obsessed times and a mystery of human identity. Jennifer Egan illuminates the difficulties of shaping an inner life in a culture preoccupied with surfaces and asks whether 'truth' can have any meaning in an era when reality itself has become a style.Written with a masterful intelligence and grace, "Look at Me" establishes Jennifer Egan as one of the most daring and gifted novelists of her generation. 'The plot is a glorious and intricate mechanism, but it is Egan's style that ignites the imagination. Her prose is balanced, evocative and beautiful. And her underlying interest in the nature of self, image and reality permeates this sardonic and forceful work' - "Daily Telegraph". 'Bitingly intelligent satire on American celebrity culture' - "Independent". 'A parody of the self-discovery novel, it's an intelligent, gripping read about the manipulation of the individual' - "Time Out".

Jack has sensory processing disorder and experiences life differently. Jack visits his Grandparents cabin and learns to like the snow. He gets encouragement from different family members and learns to be brave, in order to join in and make a snowman with his family. Come join Jack on his journey, and learn to be brave along with him!

In Jennifer Egan’s highly acclaimed first novel, set in 1978, the political drama and familial tensions of the 1960s form a backdrop for the world of Phoebe O’Connor, age eighteen. Phoebe is obsessed with the memory and death of her sister Faith, a beautiful idealistic hippie who died in Italy in 1970. In order to find out the truth about Faith’s life and death, Phoebe retraces her steps from San Francisco across Europe, a quest which yields both complex and disturbing revelations about family, love, and Faith’s lost generation. This spellbinding novel introduced Egan’s remarkable ability to tie suspense with deeply insightful characters and the nuances of emotion.

Achtzig Titanschrauben halten das Gesicht des Models Charlotte Swenson nach einem schweren Autounfall zusammen. Zwar immer noch schön, erinnert nichts mehr an ihr früheres Aussehen. Als sie nach ihrem Krankenhausaufenthalt in ihr Apartment im 25. Stock zurückkehrt, ist sie wie eine Fremde in New York, jener Stadt, die ihr früher die Welt bedeutete. Doch was, wenn die Öffentlichkeit längst von makelloser Schönheit gelangweilt ist und echtes Blut sehen will? Mit erzählerischer Brillanz und satirischer Hellsichtigkeit hinterfragt Jennifer Egan unsere obsessive Image-Kultur und den Maßstab ihrer Werte. Ein kühl hypnotisierender Thriller im Stile David Lynchs über »das irrsinnige Treiben auf dem Jahrmarkt der Eitelkeiten und den blindwütigen Hass derjenigen, die nicht mittanzen dürfen.« Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung