Books by Sigrid Nunez
The Last of Her Kind: A Novel
by Sigrid Nunez
The Last of Her Kind introduces two women who meet as freshmen on the Columbia campus in 1968. Georgette George does not know what to make of her brilliant, idealistic roommate, Ann Drayton, and her obsessive disdain for the ruling class into which she was born. She is mortified by Ann's romanticization of the underprivileged class, which Georgette herself is hoping college will enable her to escape. After the violent fight that ends their friendship, Georgette wants only to forget Ann and to turn her attention to the troubled runaway kid sister who has reappeared after years on the road. Then, in 1976, Ann is convicted of murder. At first, Ann's fate appears to be the inevitable outcome of her belief in the moral imperative to "make justice" in a world where "there are no innocent white people." But, searching for answers to the riddle of this friend of her youth, Georgette finds more complicated and mysterious forces at work. As the novel's narrator, Georgette illuminates the terrifying life of this difficult, doomed woman, and in the process discovers how much their early encounter has determined her own path, and why, decades later, as she tells us, "I have never stopped thinking about her."
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The Last of Her Kind: A Novel
by Sigrid Nunez
The paths of two women from different walks of life intersect amid counterculture of the 1960s in this haunting and provocative novel from the National Book Award-winning author of The Friend
Named a Best Book of the Year by the San Francisco Chronicle and theChristian Science Monitor
Sigrid Nunez's The Last of Her Kind introduces two women who meet as freshmen on the Columbia campus in 1968. Georgette George does not know what to make of her brilliant, idealistic roommate, Ann Drayton, and her obsessive disdain for the ruling class into which she was born. She is mortified by Ann's romanticization of the underprivileged class, which Georgette herself is hoping college will enable her to escape. After the violent fight that ends their friendship, Georgette wants only to forget Ann and to turn her attention to the troubled runaway kid sister who has reappeared after years on the road. Then, in 1976, Ann is convicted of murder. At first, Ann's fate appears to be the inevitable outcome of her belief in the moral imperative to "make justice" in a world where "there are no innocent white people." But, searching for answers to the riddle of this friend of her youth, Georgette finds more complicated and mysterious forces at work.
The novel's narrator Georgette illuminates the terrifying life of this difficult, doomed woman, and in the process discovers how much their early encounter has determined her own path, and why, decades later, as she tells us, "I have never stopped thinking about her."
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What Are You Going Through: A Novel
by Sigrid Nunez
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2020 BY NPR, PEOPLE, AND O, THE OPRAH MAGAZINE
A NEW YORK TIMES CRITICS’ TOP BOOK OF 2020
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
“As good as The Friend, if not better.” —The New York Times
“Impossible to put down . . . leavened with wit and tenderness.” —People
“I was dazed by the novel’s grace.” —The New Yorker
The New York Times–bestselling, National Book Award–winning author of The Friend brings her singular voice to a story about the meaning of life and death, and the value of companionship
A woman describes a series of encounters she has with various people in the ordinary course of her life: an ex she runs into by chance at a public forum, an Airbnb owner unsure how to interact with her guests, a stranger who seeks help comforting his elderly mother, a friend of her youth now hospitalized with terminal cancer. In each of these people the woman finds a common need: the urge to talk about themselves and to have an audience to their experiences. The narrator orchestrates this chorus of voices for the most part as a passive listener, until one of them makes an extraordinary request, drawing her into an intense and transformative experience of her own.
In What Are You Going Through, Nunez brings wisdom, humor, and insight to a novel about human connection and the changing nature of relationships in our times. A surprising story about empathy and the unusual ways one person can help another through hardship, her book offers a moving and provocative portrait of the way we live now.
Copies
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$18.00
What Are You Going Through: A Novel
by Sigrid Nunez
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2020 BY NPR, PEOPLE, AND O, THE OPRAH MAGAZINE
A NEW YORK TIMES CRITICS’ TOP BOOK OF 2020
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
“As good as The Friend, if not better.” —The New York Times
“Impossible to put down . . . leavened with wit and tenderness.” —People
“I was dazed by the novel’s grace.” —The New Yorker
The New York Times–bestselling, National Book Award–winning author of The Friend brings her singular voice to a story about the meaning of life and death, and the value of companionship
A woman describes a series of encounters she has with various people in the ordinary course of her life: an ex she runs into by chance at a public forum, an Airbnb owner unsure how to interact with her guests, a stranger who seeks help comforting his elderly mother, a friend of her youth now hospitalized with terminal cancer. In each of these people the woman finds a common need: the urge to talk about themselves and to have an audience to their experiences. The narrator orchestrates this chorus of voices for the most part as a passive listener, until one of them makes an extraordinary request, drawing her into an intense and transformative experience of her own.
In What Are You Going Through, Nunez brings wisdom, humor, and insight to a novel about human connection and the changing nature of relationships in our times. A surprising story about empathy and the unusual ways one person can help another through hardship, her book offers a moving and provocative portrait of the way we live now.
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No copies available.
The Vulnerables: A Novel
by Sigrid Nunez
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY NPR, HARPER'S BAZAAR, VOGUE AND KIRKUS REVIEWS
The New York Times–bestselling, National Book Award–winning author of The Friend and What Are You Going Through brings her singular voice to a story about modern life and connection
“I am committed, until one of us dies, to Nunez’s novels. I find them ideal. They are short, wise, provocative, funny — good and strong company.” —Dwight Garner, The New York Times
“With the intimacy and humor of a great conversation, this novel makes you feel smarter and more alive.” —People Magazine
“An ode to our basic need to connect with other beings, be they human or animal, even in a global crisis that told us to stay apart.” —NPR
Elegy plus comedy is the only way to express how we live in the world today, says a character in Sigrid Nunez’s ninth novel. The Vulnerables offers a meditation on our contemporary era, as a solitary female narrator asks what it means to be alive at this complex moment in history and considers how our present reality affects the way a person looks back on her past.
Humor, to be sure, is a priceless refuge. Equally vital is connection with others, who here include an adrift member of Gen Z and a spirited parrot named Eureka. The Vulnerables reveals what happens when strangers are willing to open their hearts to each other and how far even small acts of caring can go to ease another’s distress. A search for understanding about some of the most critical matters of our time, Nunez’s new novel is also an inquiry into the nature and purpose of writing itself.
Copies
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$28.00
The Vulnerables: A Novel
by Sigrid Nunez
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY NPR, HARPER'S BAZAAR, VOGUE, THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICE, THE IRISH TIMES, NEW REPUBLIC AND KIRKUS REVIEWS
The New York Times–bestselling, National Book Award–winning author of The Friend and What Are You Going Through brings her singular voice to a story about modern life and connection
“I am committed, until one of us dies, to Nunez’s novels. I find them ideal. They are short, wise, provocative, funny — good and strong company.” —Dwight Garner, The New York Times
“With the intimacy and humor of a great conversation, this novel makes you feel smarter and more alive.” —People Magazine
“An ode to our basic need to connect with other beings, be they human or animal, even in a global crisis that told us to stay apart.” —NPR
Elegy plus comedy is the only way to express how we live in the world today, says a character in Sigrid Nunez’s ninth novel. The Vulnerables offers a meditation on our contemporary era, as a solitary female narrator asks what it means to be alive at this complex moment in history and considers how our present reality affects the way a person looks back on her past.
Humor, to be sure, is a priceless refuge. Equally vital is connection with others, who here include an adrift member of Gen Z and a spirited parrot named Eureka. The Vulnerables reveals what happens when strangers are willing to open their hearts to each other and how far even small acts of caring can go to ease another’s distress. A search for understanding about some of the most critical matters of our time, Nunez’s new novel is also an inquiry into the nature and purpose of writing itself.
Copies
-
$18.00
The Friend: A Novel
by Sigrid Nunez
WINNER OF THE 2018 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION
SHORTLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL DUBLIN LITERARY AWARD
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
"A beautiful book … a world of insight into death, grief, art, and love." —Wall Street Journal
"A penetrating, moving meditation on loss, comfort, memory...Nunez has a wry, withering wit." —NPR
"Dry, allusive and charming…the comedy here writes itself.” The New York Times
A moving story of love, friendship, grief, healing, and the magical bond between a woman and her dog.
When a woman unexpectedly loses her lifelong best friend and mentor, she finds herself burdened with the unwanted dog he has left behind. Her own battle against grief is intensified by the mute suffering of the dog, a huge Great Dane traumatized by the inexplicable disappearance of its master, and by the threat of eviction: dogs are prohibited in her apartment building.
While others worry that grief has made her a victim of magical thinking, the woman refuses to be separated from the dog except for brief periods of time. Isolated from the rest of the world, increasingly obsessed with the dog's care, determined to read its mind and fathom its heart, she comes dangerously close to unraveling. But while troubles abound, rich and surprising rewards lie in store for both of them.
Elegiac and searching, The Friend is both a meditation on loss and a celebration of human-canine devotion.
Copies
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$18.00
The Friend (National Book Award Winner): A Novel
by Sigrid Nunez
WINNER OF THE 2018 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION
SHORTLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL DUBLIN LITERARY AWARD
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
"A beautiful book … a world of insight into death, grief, art, and love." —Wall Street Journal
"A penetrating, moving meditation on loss, comfort, memory...Nunez has a wry, withering wit." —NPR
"Dry, allusive and charming…the comedy here writes itself.” The New York Times
A moving story of love, friendship, grief, healing, and the magical bond between a woman and her dog.
When a woman unexpectedly loses her lifelong best friend and mentor, she finds herself burdened with the unwanted dog he has left behind. Her own battle against grief is intensified by the mute suffering of the dog, a huge Great Dane traumatized by the inexplicable disappearance of its master, and by the threat of eviction: dogs are prohibited in her apartment building.
While others worry that grief has made her a victim of magical thinking, the woman refuses to be separated from the dog except for brief periods of time. Isolated from the rest of the world, increasingly obsessed with the dog's care, determined to read its mind and fathom its heart, she comes dangerously close to unraveling. But while troubles abound, rich and surprising rewards lie in store for both of them.
Elegiac and searching, The Friend is both a meditation on loss and a celebration of human-canine devotion.
Copies
No copies available.
Sempre Susan: A Memoir of Susan Sontag
by Sigrid Nunez
A poignant, intimate memoir of one of America's most esteemed and fascinating cultural figures, and a deeply felt work of homage. Novelist Sigrid Nunez was an aspiring writer when she first met Susan Sontag, already a legendary figure known for her polemical essays, her blindingly bright intelligence, and her edgy personal style. Sontag introduced Nunez to her son, the writer David Rieff, and the two began dating. Soon Nunez had moved into the apartment that Rieff and Sontag shared. Described by Nunez as "a natural mentor," Sontag inevitably infected those around her with her many cultural and intellectual passions. Her influence on Nunez would be profound, and Nunez looks back with gratitude for having had, as an early model, "someone who held such an exalted, unironic view of the writer's vocation." For a young woman who yearned to become a writer, says Nunez, meeting Sontag was one of the luckiest strokes of her life. Published more than six years after Sontag's death, this book is a startlingly truthful portrait of this outsize personality, who made being an intellectual a glamorous occupation.
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Sempre Susan: A Memoir of Susan Sontag
by Sigrid Nunez
From the author of The Friend, winner of the 2018 National Book Award.
"The masterpiece of the ‘I knew Susan’ minigenre" – A.O. Scott, The New York Times
A poignant, intimate memoir of one of America’s most esteemed and fascinating cultural figures, and a deeply felt tribute.
Sigrid Nunez was an aspiring writer when she first met Susan Sontag, already a legendary figure known for her polemical essays, blinding intelligence, and edgy personal style. Sontag introduced Nunez to her son, the writer David Rieff, and the two began dating. Soon Nunez moved into the apartment that Rieff and Sontag shared. As Sontag told Nunez, “Who says we have to live like everyone else?”
Sontag’s influence on Nunez, who went on to become a successful novelist, would be profound. Described by Nunez as “a natural mentor” who saw educating others as both a moral obligation and a source of endless pleasure, Sontag inevitably infected those around her with her many cultural and intellectual passions. In this poignant, intimate memoir, Nunez speaks of her gratitude for having had, as an early model, “someone who held such an exalted, unironic view of the writer’s vocation.”
Published more than six years after Sontag’s death, Sempre Susan is a startlingly truthful portrait of this outsized personality, who made being an intellectual a glamorous occupation.
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Salvation City
by Sigrid Nunez
After a flu pandemic has killed large numbers of people worldwide, the United States has grown increasingly anarchic. Large numbers of children are stranded in orphanages, and systems we take for granted are fraying at the seams. When orphaned Cole Vining finds refuge with an evangelical pastor and his young wife in a small Indiana town, he knows he is one of the lucky ones. Sheltered Salvation City has been spared much of the devastation of the outside world.
But it's a starkly different community from the one Cole has known, and he struggles with what this changed world means for him. As those around him become increasingly fixated on their vision of utopia - so different from his own parents' dreams - Cole begins to imagine a new and different future for himself.
Written in Sigrid Nunez's deceptively simple style, Salvation City is a story of love, betrayal, and forgiveness, weaving the deeply affecting story of a young boy's transformation with a profound meditation on the true meaning of salvation.
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Salvation City
by Sigrid Nunez
From an award-winning author comes a "wise and richly humane coming-of-age novel" (O: The Oprah Magazine).
In an America devastated by a flu pandemic, orphaned thirteen-year-old Cole finds safety and stability with an evangelical pastor and his wife. Happiness becomes disquiet as he realizes the cost at which this peace comes, and the extent to which it challenges everything he knows.
Salvation City is a story of love, betrayal, and forgiveness, blending a deeply affecting portrait of one young boy's transformation with a profound meditation on belief, heroism, and the true meaning of salvation.
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Mitz: The Marmoset of Bloomsbury
by Sigrid Nunez
This "tender biography of a sickly marmoset that was adopted by Leonard Woolf and became a fixture of Bloomsbury society" (The New York Times) is an intimate portrait of the life and marriage of Leonard and Virginia Woolf from a National Book Award-winning author.
In 1934, a "sickly pathetic marmoset” named Mitz came into the care of Leonard Woolf. After he nursed her back to health, she became a ubiquitous presence in Bloomsbury society. Moving with Leonard and Virginia Woolf between their homes in London and Sussex, she developed her own special relationship with each of them, as well as with their pet cocker spaniels and with various members of the Woolfs’ circle, among them T. S. Eliot and Vita Sackville-West. Mitz also helped the Woolfs escape a close call with Nazis during a trip through Germany just before the outbreak of World War II. Using letters, diaries, memoirs, and other archival documents, Nunez reconstructs Mitz’s life against the background of Bloomsbury’s twilight years. This tender and imaginative mock biography offers a striking look at the lives of writers and artists shadowed by war, death, and mental breakdown, and at the solace and amusement inspired by its tiny subject--and this new edition includes an afterword by Peter Cameron and a never-before-published letter about Mitz by Nigel Nicolson.
“In short, glistening sentences that refract the larger world, Ms. Nunez describes the appealingly eccentric, fiercely intelligent Woolfs during a darkening time.” —The Wall Street Journal
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A Feather on the Breath of God: A Novel
by Sigrid Nunez
From Sigrid Nunez, the National Book Award-winning author of The Friend, comes A Feather on the Breath of God: a mesmerizing story about the tangled nature of relationships between parents and children, between language and love
A young woman looks back to the world of her immigrant parents: a Chinese-Panamanian father and a German mother. Growing up in a housing project in the 1950s and 1960s, she escapes into dreams inspired both by her parents' stories and by her own reading and, for a time, into the otherworldly life of ballet. A yearning, homesick mother, a silent and withdrawn father, the ballet--these are the elements that shape the young woman's imagination and her sexuality.
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No copies available.
A Feather on the Breath of God A Novel
by Sigrid Nunez
From the National Book Award-winning author of The Friend, A Feather on the Breath of God, is a mesmerizing story about the tangled nature of relationships between parents and children, between language and love.
With a new introduction by Susan Choi, the National Book Award-winning author of Trust Exercises
A young woman looks back to the world of her immigrant parents: a Chinese Panamanian father and a German mother. Growing up in a housing project in the 1950s and 1960s, she escapes into dreams inspired both by her parents’ stories and by her own reading and, for a time, into the otherworldly life of ballet. A yearning homesick mother, a silent and withdrawn father, the ballet—these are the elements that shape the young woman’s imagination and her sexuality.
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La habitación de al lado guion basado en la novela Cuál es tu tormento de Sigrid Nunez
by Pedro Almodovar, Sigrid Nunez
***León de Oro en el Festival de Cine de Venecia***
El libro que acompaña a la nueva película de Pedro Almodóvar, la primera de su carrera rodada íntegramente en inglés, con Tilda Swinton y Julianne Moore.
Un regalo para cinéfilos.
Ingrid y Martha fueron muy amigas en su juventud. Trabajaban en la misma revista, pero Ingrid acabó convirtiéndose en novelista de autoficción y Martha en reportera de guerra. Las circunstancias de la vida las separaron y, después de muchos años sin tener contacto, vuelven a encontrarse en Nueva York, en una situación límite, aunque extrañamente dulce. Martha, que ha sido una madre muy imperfecta y se ha ido distanciando de su hija, sufre una grave enfermedad. Ingrid la acompañará durante varios meses, mientras hablan sobre la muerte, la amistad y el placer sexual como buenos aliados para luchar contra el horror y la crueldad de un mundo empeñado en avanzar hacia la destrucción.
Esta edición contiene, además del guion en español de la película, un epílogo firmado por el propio Almodóvar que recoge, en un texto inédito, sus reflexiones sobre el duelo; asimismo, está profusamente ilustrada a todo color con fotogramas del film, imágenes del rodaje y fragmentos del storyboard. La habitación de al lado es un libro que sirve de perfecto acompañante del largometraje y atraerá a todos los amantes del cine y la cultura.
ENGLISH DESCRIPTION
***Winner of the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival***
The companion to the new movie by Pedro Almodóvar, his first filmed entirely in English, starring Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore.
A gift for movie lovers.
Ingrid and Martha were close friends when they were young. They worked at the same magazine, but Ingrid went on to become a novelist and Martha a war reporter. They drifted apart but, many years after losing touch, they meet again in New York in dire but strangely touching circumstances. Martha, an imperfect mother who is estranged from her daughter, is gravely ill. Ingrid becomes her companion for the next few months, during which time they have long discussions about death, friendship and sexual pleasure as hedges against the cruelty and horror of a world bent on destruction.
This edition includes the Spanish-language script for the film and an epilogue by Almodóvar containing his never-before-published reflections about grief. It also features color stills from the film, scenes from the set and excerpts from the storyboard. The Room Next Door is the perfect companion to the film and a treat for movie fans and cultural aficionados.
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It Will Come Back to You Collected Stories
by Sigrid Nunez
The first ever collection of short stories from the New York Times bestselling, National Book Award-winning author of The Friend
Over the course of thirty years, Sigrid Nunez has become one of contemporary fiction’s most distinctive voices, producing nine penetrating, profound novels celebrated by fans and critics alike. Revered for their warm, unadorned style, Nunez’s books are “as sophisticated as they are straightforward” (New York Times Magazine), melding a “wry, withering wit” (NPR) with “explosions of pathos” (Washington Post) to conjure “world[s] of insight into death, grief, art, and love” (Wall Street Journal).
But she has not, until now, produced a book of stories. In It Will Come Back to You, Nunez selects thirteen of her best stories from the decades-long sweep of her career, tracing the origins of her style and her remarkable artistic range. Moving from the momentous to the mundane, Nunez maintains her expert balance between gravity and levity while probing the philosophical questions that illuminate her work.
What New York Times critic Dwight Garner says of Nunez’s novels is true of these stories as well: “They are . . . wise, provocative, funny—good and strong company.”
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$29.00