Queen Of The Sheep

An epic family saga set on the sprawling, beautiful ranches of the American West, from the author of The Power of the Dog, "a masterful novelist working at the peak of his form" (Washington Post). A Western family story at once intimate and epic, this rich, compelling, emotionally charged novel tells the story of the Sweringen family of Idaho: Emma, the matriarch, known as the Sheep Queen ("surely one of the most fascinating characters in current fiction" —Publishers Weekly); the daughter who disappoints her; the grandson who adores her; and the granddaughter, given up for adoption, who spends nearly half her life finding her way back to her family. "The Sheep Queen is marvelous...Her reign has a mythic grandeur." —New York Times Book Review "A fine novel...A sense of family as anchor and root and self-definition [gives] the book its considerable strength...Savage is a writer of the first order, and he possesses in abundance the novelist's highest art — the ability to illuminate and move." —The New Yorker

An epic family saga set on the sprawling, beautiful ranches of the American West, from the author of The Power of the Dog, "a masterful novelist working at the peak of his form" (Washington Post). A Western family story at once intimate and epic, this rich, compelling, emotionally charged novel tells the story of the Sweringen family of Idaho: Emma, the matriarch, known as the Sheep Queen ("surely one of the most fascinating characters in current fiction" —Publishers Weekly); the daughter who disappoints her; the grandson who adores her; and the granddaughter, given up for adoption, who spends nearly half her life finding her way back to her family. "The Sheep Queen is marvelous...Her reign has a mythic grandeur." —New York Times Book Review "A fine novel...A sense of family as anchor and root and self-definition [gives] the book its considerable strength...Savage is a writer of the first order, and he possesses in abundance the novelist's highest art — the ability to illuminate and move." —The New Yorker

With his stunning debut novel, She's Come Undone, Wally Lamb won the adulation of critics and readers with his mesmerizing tale of one woman's painful yet triumphant journey of self-discovery. Now, this brilliantly talented writer returns with I Know This Much Is True, a heartbreaking and poignant multigenerational saga of the reproductive bonds of destruction and the powerful force of forgiveness. A masterpiece that breathtakingly tells a story of alienation and connection, power and abuse, devastation and renewal--this novel is a contemporary retelling of an ancient Hindu myth. A proud king must confront his demons to achieve salvation. Change yourself, the myth instructs, and you will inhabit a renovated world. When you're the same brother of a schizophrenic identical twin, the tricky thing about saving yourself is the blood it leaves on your bands--the little inconvenience of the look-alike corpse at your feet. And if you're into both survival of the fittest and being your brother's keeper--if you've promised your dying mother--then say so long to sleep and hello to the middle of the night. Grab a book or a beer. Get used to Letterman's gap-toothed smile of the absurd, or the view of the bedroom ceiling, or the influence of random selection. Take it from a godless insomniac. Take it from the uncrazy twin--the guy who beat the biochemical rap. Dominick Birdsey's entire life has been compromised and constricted by anger and fear, by the paranoid schizophrenic twin brother he both deeply loves and resents, and by the past they shared with their adoptive father, Ray, a spit-and-polish ex-Navy man (the five-foot-six-inch sleeping giant who snoozed upstairs weekdays in the spare room and built submarines at night), and their long-suffering mother, Concettina, a timid woman with a harelip that made her shy and self-conscious: She holds a loose fist to her face to cover her defective mouth--her perpetual apology to the world for a birth defect over which she'd had no control. Born in the waning moments of 1949 and the opening minutes of 1950, the twins are physical mirror images who grow into separate yet connected entities: the seemingly strong and protective yet fearful Dominick, his mother's watchful "monkey"; and the seemingly weak and sweet yet noble Thomas, his mother's gentle "bunny." From childhood, Dominick fights for both separation and wholeness--and ultimately self-protection--in a house of fear dominated by Ray, a bully who abuses his power over these stepsons whose biological father is a mystery. I was still afraid of his anger but saw how he punished weakness--pounced on it. Out of self-preservation I hid my fear, Dominick confesses. As for Thomas, he just never knew how to play defense. He just didn't get it. But Dominick's talent for survival comes at an enormous cost, including the breakup of his marriage to the warm, beautiful Dessa, whom he still loves. And it will be put to the ultimate test when Thomas, a Bible-spouting zealot, commits an unthinkable act that threatens the tenuous balance of both his and Dominick's lives. To save himself, Dominick must confront not only the pain of his past but the dark secrets he has locked deep within himself, and the sins of his ancestors--a quest that will lead him beyond the confines of his blue-collar New England town to the volcanic foothills of Sicily 's Mount Etna, where his ambitious and vengefully proud grandfather and a namesake Domenico Tempesta, the sostegno del famiglia, was born. Each of the stories Ma told us about Papa reinforced the message that he was the boss, that he ruled the roost, that what he said went. Searching for answers, Dominick turns to the whispers of the dead, to the pages of his grandfather's handwritten memoir, The History of Domenico Onofrio Tempesta, a Great Man from Humble Beginnings. Rendered with touches of magic realism, Domenico's fablelike tale--in which monkeys enchant and religious statues weep--becomes the old man's confession--an unwitting legacy of contrition that reveals the truth's of Domenico's life, Dominick learns that power, wrongly used, defeats the oppressor as well as the oppressed, and now, picking through the humble shards of his deconstructed life, he will search for the courage and love to forgive, to expiate his and his ancestors' transgressions, and finally to rebuild himself beyond the haunted shadow of his twin. Set against the vivid panoply of twentieth-century America and filled with richly drawn, memorable characters, this deeply moving and thoroughly satisfying novel brings to light humanity's deepest needs and fears, our aloneness, our desire for love and acceptance, our struggle to survive at all costs. Joyous, mystical, and exquisitely written, I Know This Much Is True is an extraordinary reading experience that will leave no reader untouched.

In Sari Rosenblatt’s collection, by turns tender and hilarious, we see fathers who are bullies and nervous watchdogs, haunted by their own pasts and fear of the future they may never see. And who do their daughters become? A substitute teacher who encounters mouthy students who believe she’s not real. Another lands a job on her city’s arson squad, researching derelict properties their owners might want to burn. A beleaguered mother, humiliated by the PTA’s queen bee, finds solace in an ancient piece of caramel candy. “I keep sucking,” she says, “until some flavor, no longer caramel, comes out.” In the end, this is what all these finely wrought characters want: to wring sweetness from what’s been passed down to them. Rosenblatt’s comic sensibility, so present in these stories, entertains and consoles, while seeming to say to her readers: you might as well laugh.

A child's fear on a dark and stormy night are quickly doused by the antics of a flock of very unusual sheep. Smelly sheep, sweet sheep, messy sheep, and neat sheep frolic through the night with sheep with buttons and sheep with slippers. But what is behind those wooly sheep zippers?

Chronicles five generations of an American sheep-ranching dynasty, focusing on the beautiful daughter, Elizabeth, who threatens the family's unity and her own identity, and details the lives of Elizabeth's two husbands and her son.

Amos, an old sheep, is tired of having his wool cut off, and tries to take the sweater that has been made from it.

A wild romp around London as the Queen loses her hat! From Steve Antony, the author and illustrator of PLEASE, MR. PANDA and BETTY GOES BANANAS!A sudden gust of wind sets off a marvelous adventure for the Queen, lots of Queen's men, and one very special hat. Just where will that hat land? Following a hysterical, epic hat chase, the Queen is reunited with her hat -- and the royal baby!Young children will love the search-and-find fun of the story, the hysterical mayhem that breaks loose, and Steve Antony's winning art style. THE QUEEN'S HAT shows some of London's most famous sites, and back matter explains their significance.