Books by Ann Beattie

Follies: New Stories

by Ann Beattie

Ann Beattie's Follies is a superb novella and collection of stories about adult children, aging parents, and the chance encounters that irrevocably alter lives. Beattie, winner of four O. Henry prizes, has been called "one of our era's most vital masters of the short form" (The Washington Post Book World). She is a masterful observer of domestic relations and the idiosyncratic logic that governs human lives.
In Follies, her most resonant collection, she looks at baby boomers in their maturity, sorting out their own lives and struggling with parents who are eccentric, unpredictable, and increasingly dependent. In "Fléchette Follies," a man rear-ends a woman at a stoplight, and the ripple effect of that encounter is vast and catastrophic. In "Apology for a Journey Not Taken," a woman's road trip is perpetually postponed by the UPS deliveryman who wants to watch TV in her house, by the girl next door who has lost her dog, and by the death of her friend in a freak accident. Impatient in his old age, the protagonist of "That Last Odd Day in L.A." can hardly manage a pleasant word to his own daughter, but he finds a chance for redemption on the last day of a vacation he spends with his niece and nephew.
Ann Beattie is at the top of her form in this superb collection, writing with the vividness, compassion, and sometimes morbid wit that have made her one of the most influential writers of her generation.

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Follies: New Stories

by Ann Beattie

From four time O. Henry Award–winning author Ann Beattie, a compellingly tender, acute, and revelatory collection of stories.

Ann Beattie's Follies is a superb novella and collection of stories about adult children, aging parents, and the chance encounters that irrevocably alter lives. Beattie is a masterful observer of domestic relations and the idiosyncratic logic that governs human lives.

In Follies, her most resonant collection, she looks at baby boomers in their maturity, sorting out their own lives and struggling with parents who are eccentric, unpredictable, and increasingly dependent. In "Fléchette Follies," a man rear-ends a woman at a stoplight, and the ripple effect of that encounter is vast and catastrophic. In "Apology for a Journey Not Taken," a woman's road trip is perpetually postponed by the UPS deliveryman who wants to watch TV in her house, by the girl next door who has lost her dog, and by the death of her friend in a freak accident. Impatient in his old age, the protagonist of "That Last Odd Day in L.A." can hardly manage a pleasant word to his own daughter, but he finds a chance for redemption on the last day of a vacation he spends with his niece and nephew.

Ann Beattie is at the top of her form in this superb collection, writing with the vividness, compassion, and sometimes morbid wit that have made her one of the most influential writers of her generation.

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Love Always

by Ann Beattie

From an award-winning, national bestselling author comes a "ferociously funny” novel (The Los Angeles Times) about an advice columnist in Vermont whose life is about to be turned upside down.

Lucy Spenser, the Miss Lonelyhearts of a chic counter-cultural magazine, finds her unflappable Vermont life completely upended by her teenaged soap-opera-star niece, Nicole, and her hangers-on.

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Picturing Will

by Ann Beattie

Picturing Will, the widely acclaimed new novel by Ann Beattie, unravels the complexities of a postmodern family. There's Will, a curious five-year-old who listens to the heartbeat of a plant through his toy stethoscope; Jody, his mother, a photographer poised on the threshold of celebrity; Mel, Jody's perfect -- perhaps too perfect -- lover; and Wayne, the rather who left Will without warning and now sees his infrequent visits as a crimp in his bedhopping. Beattie shows us how these lives intersect, attract, and repel one another with dazzling shifts and moments of heartbreaking directness.

From the Trade Paperback edition.

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Picturing Will

by Ann Beattie

Picturing Will, the widely acclaimed new novel by Ann Beattie, unravels the complexities of a postmodern family. There's Will, a curious five-year-old who listens to the heartbeat of a plant through his toy stethoscope; Jody, his mother, a photographer poised on the threshold of celebrity; Mel, Jody's perfect -- perhaps too perfect -- lover; and Wayne, the father who left Will without warning and now sees his infrequent visits as a crimp in his bedhopping. Beattie shows us how these lives intersect, attract, and repel one another with dazzling shifts and moments of heartbreaking directness.

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A Wonderful Stroke of Luck: A Novel

by Ann Beattie

A Good Housekeeping Best Book of the Year

"Every sentence shines with wit, originality, and sharp observations."
--The Boston Globe

A razor-sharp, deeply felt novel about the complicated relationship between a charismatic teacher and his students, and the secrets we keep from those we love

At a boarding school in New Hampshire, Ben joins the honor society led by Pierre LaVerdere, an enigmatic, brilliant, yet perverse, teacher who instructs his students not only about how to reason, but how to prevaricate. As the years go by, LaVerdere's covert and overt instruction lingers in his students' lives as they seek some sense of purpose or meaning. When Ben feels the pace of his life accelerating and views his intimate relationships as less and less fulfilling, there seems to be a subtext he's not able to access. And what, really, did Bailey Academy teach him?

While relationships with his stepmother and sister improve, and a move to upstate New York offers respite from his anxiety about love and work, LaVerdere's reappearance in his life disturbs his equilibrium. Everything he once thought he knew about his teacher--and himself--is called into question. Written by one of our most iconic writers, known for casting a cold eye on her generation's ambivalence and sometimes mistaken ambition, A Wonderful Stroke of Luck is a keenly observed psychological study of a man who alternates between careful driving and hazardous risk taking, as he struggles to incorporate his past into the vertiginous present.

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A Wonderful Stroke of Luck: A Novel

by Ann Beattie

Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2019 by Vulture, The Millions, The Observer, and O, The Oprah Magazine

A razor-sharp, deeply felt new novel--the twenty-first book by Ann Beattie--about the complicated relationship between a charismatic teacher and his students, and the secrets we keep from those we love

At a boarding school in New Hampshire, Ben joins the honor society led by Pierre LaVerdere, an enigmatic, brilliant, yet perverse, teacher who instructs his students not only about how to reason, but how to prevaricate. As the years go by, LaVerdere's covert and overt instruction lingers in his students' lives as they seek some sense of purpose or meaning. When Ben feels the pace of his life accelerating and views his intimate relationships as less and less fulfilling, there seems to be a subtext he's not able to access. And what, really, did Bailey Academy teach him?

While relationships with his stepmother and sister improve, and a move to upstate New York offers respite from his anxiety about love and work, LaVerdere's reappearance in his life disturbs his equilibrium. Everything he once thought he knew about his teacher--and himself--is called into question. Written by one of our most iconic writers, known for casting a cold eye on her generation's ambivalence and sometimes mistaken ambition, A Wonderful Stroke of Luck is a keenly observed psychological study of a man who alternates between careful driving and hazardous risk taking, as he struggles to incorporate his past into the vertiginous present.

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Secrets & Surprises

by Ann Beattie

These fifteen stories by Ann Beattie garnered universal critical acclaim on their first publication, earning Beattie the reputation as the most celebrated new voice in American fiction. Today these stories -- "A Vintage Thunderbird;" "The Lawn Party, " " La Petite Danseuse de Quatorze Ans," to name a few -- seem even more powerful, and are read and studied as classics of the short-story form. Spare and elegant, yet charged with feeling and with the tension of things their characters cannot say, they are masterly portraits of improvised lives.

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Burning House

by Ann Beattie

The now-classic, utterly unique voice of Ann Beattie is so dry it throws off sparks, her eye endowed with the emotional equivalent of X-ray vision. Her characters are young men and women discovering what it means to be a grown-up in a country that promised them they'd stay young forever. And here, in shapely, penetrating stories, Beattie confirms why she is one of the most widely imitated -- yet surely inimitable -- literary stylists of her generation.

In The Burning House, Beattie's characters go from dealing drugs to taking care of a bereaved friend. They watch their marriages fail not with a bang but with a wisecrack. And afterward, they may find themselves trading confidences with their spouses' new lovers. The Burning House proves that Beattie has no peer when it comes to revealing the hidden shapes of our relationships, or the depths of tenderness, grief, and anger that lie beneath the surfaces of our daily lives.

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Falling in Place

by Ann Beattie

An unsettling novel that traces the faltering orbits of the members of one family from a hidden love triangle to the ten-year-old son whose problem may pull everyone down.

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Chilly Scenes of Winter

by Ann Beattie

This is the story of a love-smitten Charles; his friend Sam, the Phi Beta Kappa and former coat salesman; and Charles' mother, who spends a lot of time in the bathtub feeling depressed.

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Another You

by Ann Beattie

To her latest novel, Beattie brings the same documentary accuracy and Chekhovian wit and tenderness that have made her one of the most acclaimed portraitists of contemporary American life. Marshall Lockard, a professor at the local college, is contemplating adultery, unaware that his wife is already committing it.

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What Was Mine: & Other Stories

by Ann Beattie

A collection of short fiction, twelve works in all, including two never-before-published novellas. Here are disconnected marriages and uneasy reunions, nostalgic reminiscences and sudden epiphanies--a remarkable and moving collage of contemporary lives.

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My Life, Starring Dara Falcon

by Ann Beattie

In her latest novel, the author of Another You combines intensely realistic description and an effortless command of mood to examine the treacherous difference between love and fascination--between what we know about other people and what we think we know. Dara Falcon is someone other people think they know. Charismatic and theatrical, she has no sooner arrived in a New England town than she is wreaking havoc in the lives of her new friend Jean and her family. As Ann Beattie follows Dara's antics, she braids subplots and vibrant characters into a work that is compassionate, tartly funny, and teeming with life.

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Where You'll Find Me: And Other Stories

by Ann Beattie

Hailed by the Washington Post Book World as "one of our era's most vital masters of the short form," Ann Beattie offers readers unforgettable glimpses of people coming to terms with the world around them. Most of the characters in Where You'll Find Me grew up in the 1960s and 1970s; when we meet them they are in their twenties and thirties and embody a curious, yet familiar, fusion of hope and despair. In finely crafted, often surprising narratives, Beattie writes of women nursing broken hearts, men looking for love, and married couples struggling to stay together.

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Walks With Men: Fiction

by Ann Beattie

From bestselling author Ann Beattie comes an intense, knockout novella that perfectly captures a time and a place—New York in the '80s.

It is 1980 in New York City, and Jane, a valedictorian fresh out of Harvard, strikes a deal with Neil, an intoxicating writer twenty years her senior. The two quickly become lovers, living together in a Chelsea brownstone, and Neil reveals the rules for a life well lived: If you take food home from a restaurant, don’t say it’s because you want leftovers for "the dog." Say that you want the bones for "a friend who does autopsies." If you can’t stand on your head (which is best), learn to do cartwheels. Have sex in airplane bathrooms. Wear only raincoats made in England. Neil’s certainties, Jane discovers, mask his deceptions. Her true education begins.

"One of our era’s most vital masters of the short form" (The Washington Post), Beattie brilliantly captures a time, a place and a style of engagement. Her voice is original and iconic.

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Walks With Men: Fiction

by Ann Beattie

Ann Beattie arrived in New York young, observant and celebrated (as The New Yorker’s young fiction star) in one of the most compelling and creative eras of recent times. So does the protagonist of her intense new novella, Walks with Men.

It is 1980 in New York City, and Jane, a valedictorian fresh out of Harvard, strikes a deal with Neil, an intoxicating writer twenty years her senior. The two quickly become lovers, living together in a Chelsea brownstone, and Neil reveals the rules for a life well lived: If you take food home from a restaurant, don’t say it’s because you want leftovers for "the dog." Say that you want the bones for "a friend who does autopsies." If you can’t stand on your head (which is best), learn to do cartwheels. Have sex in airplane bathrooms. Wear only raincoats made in England. Neil’s certainties, Jane discovers, mask his deceptions. Her true education begins.

"One of our era’s most vital masters of the short form" (The Washington Post), Beattie brilliantly captures a time, a place and a style of engagement. Her voice is original and iconic.

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Mrs. Nixon: A Novelist Imagines a Life

by Ann Beattie

From the award-winning author The New York Times Book Review called “a national treasure,” a fascinating, wholly original book about Pat Nixon that is also “a fully realized account of fiction, fiction writing, and the fiction writer” (The Boston Globe).

The rare First Lady who did not write a book, Pat Nixon remains one of the most mysterious and enigmatic public figures in recent history. Ann Beattie, like many of her generation, dismissed Richard Nixon’s wife. Decades later, she wonders what it must have been like to be married to such a spectacularly ambitious and catastrophically self-destructive man.

Beattie uses the elusive persona of Mrs. Nixon to examine how writers create characters, how they use detail, and what drives their storytelling. Like Stephen King’s On Writing, this fascinating and intimate account offers readers a rare glimpse into the imagination of a writer.

A startlingly compelling and revelatory work, Mrs. Nixon is an insightful and humorous examination of the First Couple who occupied the White House as the baby boomers came of age.

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The Accomplished Guest: Stories

by Ann Beattie

* A Washington Post Notable Fiction Book of the Year

A magnificent new collection from award-winning author Ann Beattie—featuring recent O. Henry, Pushcart, and Best American Short Story selections.

Surprising and revealing, set along the East Coast from Maine to Key West, Ann Beattie’s astutely observed new collection explores unconventional friendships, frustrated loves, mortality, and aging.

One theme of The Accomplished Guest is people paying visits or receiving visitors, traveling to see old friends, the joys and tolls of hosting company (and of being hosted). The occasion might be a wedding, a birthday, a reunion, an annual Christmas party, or another opportunity to gather and attempt to bond with biological relatives or chosen families. In some stories, as in life, what begins as a benign social event becomes a situation played for high stakes.

The stories in The Accomplished Guest are marked by an undercurrent of loss and an unexpected element of violence, with Beattie’s signature mordant humor woven throughout. Some characters provide welcome diversions, others are uninvited interruptions, all are indelibly drawn by the endlessly amusing and accomplished Ann Beattie.

Beattie’s debut collection Distortions was published forty years ago, but her writing is as fresh, funny, and relevant as ever. She is “a national treasure, the author of short stories that will endure and continue to inspire” (Jay McInerney, The New York Times Book Review).

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The Accomplished Guest: Stories

by Ann Beattie

* A Washington Post Notable Fiction Book of the Year

A magnificent collection from award-winning author Ann Beattie—“profoundly intriguing and unsettling stories that abound in delectably witty and furious inner monologues, barbed dialogue, ludicrous predicaments, many faceted heartaches, and abrupt upswellings of affection, even love...always on point, funny, and poignant” (Booklist, starred review).

Ann Beattie’s “seamless combination of biting wit and mordant humor, precise irony, and consummate cool” is on full display in this astutely observed collection set along the East Coast from Maine to Key West, that explores unconventional friendships, frustrated loves, mortality, and aging. In The Accomplished Guest, people pay visits or receive visitors, travel to see old friends, and experience the joys and tolls of hosting company (and of being hosted). In some stories, as in life, what begins as a benign social event becomes a situation played for high stakes.

“Ann Beattie slips into a short story as flawlessly as Audrey Hepburn wore a Givenchy gown” (Oprah Daily), and the pieces in The Accomplished Guest—featuring recent O. Henry, Pushcart, and Best American Short Story selections—are marked by an undercurrent of loss and an unexpected element of violence, with Beattie’s signature mordant humor woven throughout. Some guests provide welcome diversions, others are uninvited interruptions, all are indelibly drawn.

Beattie “punctures her characters’ pretensions and jadedness with an economy and effortless dialogue that writers have been trying to emulate for three decades” (The New York Times Book Review). The Accomplished Guest is fresh, funny, and overwhelmingly “brilliant at furnishing the precise level of niggling complexity that is tragicomically real” (San Francisco Chronicle).

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The State We're in: Maine Stories

by Ann Beattie

“Ann Beattie at her most magnificent…Her first new collection in ten years...These tales explore the range of emotional states the author is famous for: longing, disaffection, ambivalence, love, regret. It’s nice to hear her voice again” (People).

“A peerless, contemplative page-turner” (Vanity Fair), The State We’re In is about how we live in the places we have chosen—or been chosen by. It’s about the stories we tell our families, our friends, and ourselves, the truths we may or may not see, how our affinities unite or repel us, and where we look for love.

Many of these stories are set in Maine, but The State We’re In is about more than geographical location. Some characters have arrived in Maine by accident, others are trying to escape. The collection is woven around Jocelyn, a wry, disaffected teenager living with her aunt and uncle while attending summer school. As in life, the narratives of other characters interrupt Jocelyn’s, sometimes challenging, sometimes embellishing her view.

“Ann Beattie slips into a short story as flawlessly as Audrey Hepburn wore a Givenchy gown: an iconic presentation, each line and fold falling into place but allowing room for surprise” (O, The Oprah Magazine). “Splendid...memorable...every page…fitted out with the blessed finery of hypnotic storytelling” (The Washington Post), these stories describe a state of mind, a manner of being. The State We’re In explores, through women’s voices, the unexpected moments and glancing epiphanies of daily life.

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More to Say: Essays and Appreciations

by Ann Beattie

“Earnest, amusing, and contemplative....though Beattie is known for her fiction, her nonfiction has just as much to offer.”—Publishers Weekly

“Shimmering prose and critical acumen on display in an eclectic collection.”—Kirkus Reviews

As deeply rewarding as her fiction, a selection of Ann Beattie’s essays, chosen and introduced by the author. From appreciations of writers, photographers, and other artists, to notes on the craft of writing itself, this is a wide-ranging, and always penetrating collection of writing never before published in book form.

Ann Beattie, a master storyteller, has been delighting readers since the publication of her short stories in the 1970s and her first novel, Chilly Scenes of Winter. But as her literary acclaim grew and she was hailed “the voice of her generation,” Ms. Beattie was also moonlighting as a nonfiction writer. As she writes in her introduction to this collection, “Nonfiction always gave me a thrill, even if it provided only an illusion of freedom. Freedom and flexibility—for me, those are the conditions under which imagination sparks.”

These penetrating essays are stories unto themselves, closely observed appreciations of life and art. The reader travels with Ms. Beattie to Cedar Rapids, Iowa to learn about the legacy of the painter, Grant Wood, and his iconic painting American Gothic; to the famed University of Virginia campus with her husband, the painter Lincoln Perry; to Key West, Florida for New Years with writer and translator, Harry Mathews; to a roadside near Boston in a broken-down car with the wheelchair-bound writer Andre Dubus.

There are explorations of novels, short stories, paintings, and photographs by artists ranging from Alice Munro to Elmore Leonard, from Sally Mann to John Loengard. Whatever the subject, Ms. Beattie brings penetrating insight into literature and art that’s both familiar and unfamiliar—as she writes, “This, I think, is what artists want to do: find a way to lure the reader or viewer into an alternate realm, to overcome the audience’s resistance to being taken away from their own lives and interests and priorities.”

Ann Beattie’s nonfiction (originally published in Life, The New Yorker, The New York Times, and The American Scholar, among others) is a new way to enjoy one of the great writers of her generation. Readers will find much to love in this journey with a curious and fascinating mind.

More to Say is part of Godine’s Nonpareil series: celebrating the joy of discovery with books bound to be classics.

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Sally Mann: At Twelve, Portraits of Young Women

by Sally Mann, Ann Beattie

First published by Aperture in 1988, At Twelve: Portraits of Young Women is a groundbreaking classic by one of photography’s most renowned artists. Aperture is reoriginating it in a masterful facsimile edition that retains the purity of the original.

At Twelve is Sally Mann’s revealing, collective portrait of twelve-year-old girls on the verge of adulthood. To be young and female in America is a time of tremendous excitement and social possibilities; it is a trying time as well, caught between childhood and adulthood, when the difference is not entirely understood. As Ann Beattie writes in her perceptive introduction, “These girls still exist in an innocent world in which a pose is only a pose—what adults make of that pose may be the issue.” The consequences of this misunderstanding can be real: destitution, abuse, unwanted pregnancy. The young women in Mann’s unflinching, large-format photographs, however, are not victims. They return the viewer’s gaze with a disturbing equanimity. Poet Jonathan Williams writes, “Sally Mann’s girls are the ones who do the hard looking in At Twelve—be up to it!”

This reissue of At Twelve has been printed using new scans and separations from Mann’s prints, which were taken with an 8-by-10-inch view camera, rendering them with a freshness and sumptuousness true to the original edition.

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Onlookers: Stories

by Ann Beattie

* “Supple, superb.” —The Boston Globe * “A deft mash of lonesomeness and wit.” —Chicago Tribune * “Her best in more than two decades.” —The New York Times *

Award-winning short story writer Ann Beattie returns with a “sophisticated, idiosyncratic, and witty” (Star Tribune, Minneapolis) collection of linked stories set in Charlottesville, Virginia, in a moment of unrest.

Onlookers is collection of extraordinary stories about people living in the same Southern town whose lives intersect in surprising ways. Peaceful Charlottesville, Virginia, drew national attention when white nationalists held a rally there in 2017, a horrific event whose repercussions are still felt today. Confederate monuments such as General Robert E. Lee atop his horse were then still standing. The statues are a constant presence and a metaphoric refrain throughout this collection, though they represent different things to different characters. Some landmarks may have faded from consciousness but provoke fresh outrage when viewed through newly opened eyes.

In “Nearby,” an elderly man and his younger wife watch from their penthouse as protestors gather to oppose the once “heroic” explorers Lewis and Clark depicted towering over their native guide, Sacagawea. A lawyer in “In the Great Southern Tradition” deals with a crisis on Richmond’s Monument Avenue, while his sister and nephew plant tulip bulbs at her stately home.

These are stories of unexpected relationships that affirm the value of friendship, even when it requires difficult compromises or unexpected risks. Ann Beattie explores questions about the nature of community, and “proves her herself up to the task of pinpointing America’s contradictions” (Publishers Weekly).

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Onlookers: Stories

by Ann Beattie

* “Supple, superb.” —The Boston Globe * “A deft mash of lonesomeness and wit.” —Chicago Tribune * “Her best in more than two decades.” —The New York Times *

Award-winning short story writer Ann Beattie returns with a “sophisticated, idiosyncratic, and witty” (Star Tribune, Minneapolis) collection of linked stories set in Charlottesville, Virginia, in a moment of unrest.

Onlookers is collection of extraordinary stories about people living in the same Southern town whose lives intersect in surprising ways. Peaceful Charlottesville, Virginia, drew national attention when white nationalists held a rally there in 2017, a horrific event whose repercussions are still felt today. Confederate monuments such as General Robert E. Lee atop his horse were then still standing. The statues are a constant presence and a metaphoric refrain throughout this collection, though they represent different things to different characters. Some landmarks may have faded from consciousness but provoke fresh outrage when viewed through newly opened eyes.

In “Nearby,” an elderly man and his younger wife watch from their penthouse as protestors gather to oppose the once “heroic” explorers Lewis and Clark depicted towering over their native guide, Sacagawea. A lawyer in “In the Great Southern Tradition” deals with a crisis on Richmond’s Monument Avenue, while his sister and nephew plant tulip bulbs at her stately home.

These are stories of unexpected relationships that affirm the value of friendship, even when it requires difficult compromises or unexpected risks. Ann Beattie explores questions about the nature of community, and “proves her herself up to the task of pinpointing America’s contradictions” (Publishers Weekly).

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Pets

by Ann Beattie, DK Publishing, Blake Butler, Ryunosuke Akutagawa, Christine Schutt, Tao Lin, Kathryn Scanlan, Sarah Manguso, Francesca Ferri, Sam Pink, Scott McClanahan, David Nutt, Mark Leidner, Annie DeWitt, Chelsea Hodson, Kristen Iskandrian, Nicolette Polek, Yuka Igarashi, Raegan Bird, Ryan C. K. Choi, Clune,Michael W., Patty Yumi Cottrell, Precious Okoyomon, Mallory Whitten

Puppies, kittens, hamsters, and goldfish are some of the pets that delight children. They�re all here in this warm and wonderful padded cloth book for baby, which comes in a clear plastic case with carrying handle. (Ages Infant�3)

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Pets

by Ann Beattie, DK Publishing, Blake Butler, Ryunosuke Akutagawa, Christine Schutt, Tao Lin, Kathryn Scanlan, Sarah Manguso, Francesca Ferri, Sam Pink, Scott McClanahan, David Nutt, Mark Leidner, Annie DeWitt, Chelsea Hodson, Kristen Iskandrian, Nicolette Polek, Yuka Igarashi, Raegan Bird, Ryan C. K. Choi, Clune,Michael W., Patty Yumi Cottrell, Precious Okoyomon, Mallory Whitten

In Touch and Feel Pets, children will learn about their favorite pets through an engaging textured format, as they pet the silky dog, meet the whiskery cat, examine the glistening gold fish, and more. A sparkly irresistible jacket encourages toddlers to pick the book up, the bright bold interior pages help them develop object recognition, and the descriptive text builds their language skills — making this a favorite for both parents and children.
With a sparkling new look, these bestselling DK classics are sure to become favorites for a whole new generation of young readers. Babies and toddlers will be drawn to the captivating, tactile pages, and will want to touch, feel and explore every spread.

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Pets

by Ann Beattie, DK Publishing, Blake Butler, Ryunosuke Akutagawa, Christine Schutt, Tao Lin, Kathryn Scanlan, Sarah Manguso, Francesca Ferri, Sam Pink, Scott McClanahan, David Nutt, Mark Leidner, Annie DeWitt, Chelsea Hodson, Kristen Iskandrian, Nicolette Polek, Yuka Igarashi, Raegan Bird, Ryan C. K. Choi, Clune,Michael W., Patty Yumi Cottrell, Precious Okoyomon, Mallory Whitten

This anthology collects original writing and art by novelists, poets, and academics about their pets, including a killer chihuahua, a catatonic toy poodle, a contraband cat, a backyard full of endangered desert tortoises, five forgotten parakeets, and a skinny ex-racehorse named Joe. From legends like Ann Beattie and Christine Schutt to cult figures like Scott McClanahan and Tao Lin, this anthology collects writing from some of today’s best literary talent. Edited by Jordan Castro with contributions by Ryunosuke Akutagawa, Ann Beattie, Raegan Bird, Blake Butler, Ryan C. K. Choi, Michael W. Clune, Patty Yumi Cottrell, Annie DeWitt, Chelsea Hodson, Yuka Igarashi, Kristen Iskandrian, Mark Leidner, Tao Lin, Scott McClanahan, Sarah Manguso, David Nutt, Precious Okoyomon, Sam Pink, Nicolette Polek, Kathryn Scanlan, Christine Schutt, and Mallory Whitten.

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Park City: New and Selected Stories

by Ann Beattie

For more than twenty-five years, Ann Beattie's short fiction has held a mirror up to America, portraying its awkwardly welded families, its loosely coupled couples, and much-uprooted children with acuity, humor, and compassion. This triumphant collection includes thirty-six of the finest stories of her career including eight new pieces that have not appeared in a book before.
Beattie's characters embark on stoned cross-country odysseys with lovers who may leave them before the engine cools. They comfort each other amid the ashes of failed relationships and in hospital waiting rooms. They try to locate themselves in a world where all the old landmarks have been turned into theme parks. Funny and sorrowful, fiercely compressed yet emotionally
expansive, Park City is dazzling.

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The State We're In Maine Stories

by Ann Beattie

A magnificent new collection of linked stories from a multiple prize-winning master of the short form. The State We’re In, Ann Beattie’s first collection of new stories in a decade, is about how we live in the places we have chosen—or have been chosen by. It is about the stories we tell our families, our friends, and ourselves; the truths we may or may not see; how our affinities unite or repel us; and where we look for love.

Told through the voices of vivid and engaging women of all ages, The State We’re In explores their doubts and desires and reveals the unexpected moments and glancing epiphanies of daily life. Some of Beattie’s idiosyncratic and compelling characters have arrived in the coastal state by accident, while others are trying to escape. The collection is woven around Jocelyn, a wry, disaffected teenager living with her aunt and uncle for the summer, forging new friendships, avoiding her mother’s calls, taking writing classes, and encountering mortality for the first time. As in life, the narratives of other characters interrupt Jocelyn’s, sometimes challenging and sometimes embellishing her view.

Riveting, witty, sly, and bold, these stories describe a state of mind, a manner of being. A Beattie story, says Margaret Atwood, is “like a fresh bulletin from the front: we snatch it up, eager to know what’s happening out there on the edge of that shifting and dubious no-man’s-land known as interpersonal relations.” Beattie’s sentences, her insights, and her inimitable voice are mesmerizing.

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