Parnassus On Wheels

Christopher Morley's story "Parnassus on Wheels" is a joy. Helen McGill, a middle-aged spinster, has spent her life caring for her brother Andrew and their lucrative traveling bookshop known as "Parnassus." This book is classified as historical fiction, and it is a brilliant collection of ideas compacted into a single draft for readers of all ages to read. With an eye-catching new cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of "Parnassus on Wheels" is both current and legible. She, on the other hand, yearns for adventure and freedom. Helen's life takes an unexpected turn when Roger Mifflin, an interesting and strange story salesman, appears at her door with an offer to buy Parnassus. Fearing that her brother is wasting his life on the road, Helen decides to sell the bookstore and embark on her own creative trip. As she meets new people and navigates the world of bookselling, she rapidly realizes that living on the road can be both exciting and challenging. Helen and Roger form an unusual and touching friendship as they travel together, discovering not only literary delights but additionally the joys of company.

Volumes disappear and reappear on the shelves, but the ghosts of literature aren’t the only mysterious visitors in Roger Mifflin’s haunted bookshop. Mifflin, who hawked books out of the back of his van in Christopher Morley’s beloved Parnassus on Wheels, has finally settled down with his own secondhand bookstore in Brooklyn. There, he and his wife, Helen, are content to live and work together, prescribing literature to those who hardly know how much they need it. When Aubrey Gilbert, a young advertising man, visits the shop, he quickly falls under the spell of Mifflin’s young assistant, Titania. But something is amiss in the bookshop, something Mifflin is too distracted to notice, and Gilbert has no choice but to take the young woman’s safety into his own hands. Her life—and the Mifflins’—may depend on it. With a deep respect for the art of bookselling, and as much flair for drama as romance, Christopher Morley has crafted a lively, humorous tale for book lovers everywhere.

From the creators of the eponymous viral Tumblr comes a single day with your favorite authors in one Twilight-Zone-esque Starbucks... Ever wonder which intricate, elaborately-named drinks might be consumed if your favorite authors and characters wandered into a Starbucks? How many pumpkin lattes J.K. Rowling would drink? Or if Cormac McCarthy needed caffeine, which latte would be laconic enough? Look no further; LITERARY STARBUCKS explores such pressing matters with humor and erudition. Set over the course of a single day, and replete with puns and satirized literary styles, the three authors go darker, stronger, and more global than the blog in book format, including illustrations by acclaimed New Yorker cover artist and cartoonist Harry Bliss.

"Parnassus on Wheels" (1917) was Christopher Morley’s first published novel. It tells the story of Roger Mifflin, who sells his travelling book business to 39-year-old Helen McGill. The latter is tired of taking care of her ailing older brother Andrew, a businessman, farmer, and author. The novel is told from the perspective of Mrs McGill and was in part inspired by David Grayson’s novel "The Friendly Road." Morley wrote a sequel to this story called "The Haunted Bookshop." Christopher Morley (1890–1957) was an American author, poet and journalist from Pennsylvania. His father was a mathematics professor and his mother a violinist. The family moved to Baltimore, Maryland, in 1900 and he later studied modern history at Oxford. After getting his degree, he moved back to America and married Helen Booth Fairchild, with whom he had four children. Morley was a prolific writer and is remembered for novels such as "Parnassus on Wheels" (1917), "The Haunted Bookshop" (1918), "Thunder on the Left" (1925), and "Kitty Foyle" (1939).

Nina Redmond is a librarian with a gift for finding the perfect book for her readers. But can she write her own happy-ever-after? In this valentine to readers, librarians, and book-lovers the world over, the New York Times-bestselling author of Little Beach Street Bakery returns with a funny, moving new novel for fans of Nina George’s The Little Paris Bookshop. Nina is a literary matchmaker. Pairing a reader with that perfect book is her passion… and also her job. Or at least it was. Until yesterday, she was a librarian in the hectic city. But now the job she loved is no more. Determined to make a new life for herself, Nina moves to a sleepy village many miles away. There she buys a van and transforms it into a bookmobile — a mobile bookshop that she drives from neighborhood to neighborhood, changing one life after another with the power of storytelling. From helping her grumpy landlord deliver a lamb, to sharing picnics with a charming train conductor who serenades her with poetry, Nina discovers there’s plenty of adventure, magic, and soul in a place that’s beginning to feel like home… a place where she just might be able to write her own happy ending.

All it takes is eight seconds . . . Cam O'Mara, grandson and younger brother of bull-riding champions, is not interested in partaking in the family sport. Cam is a skateboarder, and perfecting his tricks—frontside flips, 360s—means everything until his older brother, Ben, comes home from Iraq, paralyzed from a brain injury. What would make a skateboarder take a different kind of ride? And what would get him on a monstrosity of a bull named Ugly? If Cam can stay on for the requisite eight seconds, could the $15,000 prize bring hope and a future for his big brother?

A New Yorker becomes ensnared by the eerie drama unfolding at a derelict New England family home in this charming mystery from the author of the Mrs. Pollifax novels. “Delightful . . . a suspenseful romp . . . highly recommended.”—Booklist At the request of his father, New York City novelist Andrew Thale tackles an odd assignment—to check out an old family property in Massachusetts, neglected since Aunt Harriet Thale’s death years ago. But far from being deserted, Thale’s Folly, as Andrew discovers, is fully inhabited—by a quartet of charming squatters, former “guests” of kindhearted Harriet. There is elegant Miss L’Hommedieu, Gussie the witch, Leo the bibliophile, and beautiful Tarragon, who is unlike any girl Andrew has ever met in Manhattan. Andrew is entranced by these unworldly creatures and their simple life. Yet all is not well in Thale’s Folly. A thief breaks into the farmhouse, an old friend of the “family” disappears, and Andrew and Tarragon are drawn into mysteries they cannot fathom. . . .