The Best Kind Of People

A finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and a national bestseller, Zoe Whittall’s The Best Kind of People is a stunning tour de force about the unravelling of an all-American family. George Woodbury, an affable teacher and beloved husband and father, is arrested for sexual impropriety at a prestigious prep school. His wife, Joan, vaults between denial and rage as the community she loved turns on her. Their daughter, Sadie, a popular over-achieving high school senior, becomes a social pariah. Their son, Andrew, assists in his father’s defense, while wrestling with his own unhappy memories of his teen years. A local author tries to exploit their story, while an unlikely men’s rights activist attempts to get Sadie onside their cause. With George locked up, how do the members of his family pick up the pieces and keep living their lives? How do they defend someone they love while wrestling with the possibility of his guilt? With exquisite emotional precision, award-winning author Zoe Whittall explores issues of loyalty, truth, and the meaning of happiness through the lens of an all-American family on the brink of collapse.

What if your own husband was accused of sexual misconduct? 'You will be left wondering just who George is, and indeed, who you are.' Irish News For readers who were gripped by Megan Abbott's The Fever and Louise O'Neill's Asking For It . SHORTLISTED FOR THE SCOTIABANK GILLER PRIZE THE BEST KIND OF PEOPLE is a page-turning Canadian bestseller about a family on the brink of collapse. It gives no easy answers, but once you stay up all night reading it, you'll want to talk about it with everyone you know. For the past ten years, science teacher George Woodbury has been hailed a suburban hero. But when his daughter Sadie turns 17, George is arrested for sexual misconduct with her own classmates, while his wife Joan looks on in shock. As George awaits trial, his son Andrew, a lawyer in New York, returns home to help, only to confront his own unhappy memories. How can the family defend the man they love while wrestling with the possibility of his guilt? Provocative and unforgettable, The Best Kind of People reveals the cracks along the seams of even the most perfect lives and the unraveling of an all-American family. 'Urgent and timely, nuanced and brave. This gripping story challenges how we hear women and girls, and dissects the self-hypnosis and fear that prevent us from speaking disruptive truth.' Scotiabank Giller Prize Jury 'Compelling story characters readers will recognize and come to love and writing that makes it effortless to turn page after page.' Vancouver Sun

From the author of The Salt House and This Is Home comes a profound novel about the power of community and a small town’s long-buried secrets as a group of New England islanders come together for a recently orphaned girl. On Ichabod Island, a jagged strip of land thirteen miles off the coast of Massachusetts, ten-year-old Sky becomes an orphan for the second time after a tragic accident claims the lives of her adoptive parents. Grieving the death of his best friends, Leo’s life is turned upside down when he finds himself the guardian of young Sky. Back on the island and struggling to balance his new responsibilities and his marriage to his husband, Leo is supported by a powerful community of neighbors, many of them harboring secrets of their own. Maggie, who helps with Sky’s childcare, has hit a breaking point with her police chief husband, who becomes embroiled in a local scandal. Her best friend Agnes, the island busybody, invites Sky’s estranged grandmother to stay for the summer, straining already precarious relationships. Their neighbor Joe struggles with whether to tell all was not well in Sky’s house in the months leading up to the accident. And among them all is a mysterious woman, drawn to Ichabod to fulfill a dying wish. Perfect for fans of Celeste Ng and Ann Leary, My Kind of People is a riveting, impassioned novel about the resilience of community and what connects us all in the face of tragedy.

Presents a richly-detailed portrait of the generation of twenty-somethings raised in an era of anti-anxiety medication, text messaging, and terrorism threats, and offers a look at the world of anxiety disorders and celebrity gossip.

It’s taboo to regret motherhood. But what would happen if you did? Shifting perspectives and time periods, The Spectacular is a multi-generational story exploring sexuality, gender and the weight of reproductive freedoms, from the author of The Best Kind of People It’s 1997 and Missy’s band has finally hit the big time as they tour across America. At age twenty-two, Missy gets on stage every night and plays the song about her absent mother that made the band famous. The only girl in the band, she’s determined to party just as hard as everyone else, loving and leaving someone in every town—until she’s left stranded at the border because of a forgotten party favour. Forty-something Carola is just surfacing from a sex scandal at the yoga centre where she has been living when she sees her daughter, Missy, for the first time in ten years—on the cover of a music magazine. Ruth, eighty-three, is planning her return to the Turkish seaside village where she spent her childhood. But when her granddaughter, Missy, crashes at her house, she decides it’s time the strong and stubborn women in her family find a way to understand one another again. In this book, by turns sharp and provocative, Zoe Whittall captures three generations of very different women who struggle to build an authentic life in the absence of traditional familial and marital structures. Definitions of family, romance, gender and love will radically change as they seek out lives that are nothing less than spectacular.

If he had been with me everything would have been different... I wasn't with Finn on that August night. But I should've been. It was raining, of course. And he and Sylvie were arguing as he drove down the slick road. No one ever says what they were arguing about. Other people think it's not important. They do not know there is another story. The story that lurks between the facts. What they do not know—the cause of the argument—is crucial. So let me tell you...

Perfect for home cooks, Julia fans, and anyone who simply loves to eat and drink—a delightful collection of the beloved chef and bestselling author’s words of wisdom on love, life, and, of course, food. "If you're afraid of butter, use cream." So decrees Julia Child, the legendary culinary authority and cookbook author who taught America how to cook—and how to eat. This delightful volume of quotations compiles some of Julia's most memorable lines on eating—"The only time to eat diet food is while you're waiting for the steak to cook"—on drinking, on life—"I think every woman should have a blowtorch"—on love, travel, France, and much more.

Like many ambitious New York City teenagers, Craig Gilner sees entry into Manhattan's Executive Pre-Professional High School as the ticket to his future. Determined to succeed at life—which means getting into the right high school to get into the right college to get the right job—Craig studies night and day to ace the entrance exam, and does. That's when things start to get crazy. At his new school, Craig realizes that he isn't brilliant compared to the other kids; he's just average, and maybe not even that. He soon sees his once-perfect future crumbling away.