The Weekend

#1 International Bestseller Shortlisted for the 2020 Australian Prime Minister's Literary Award * Shortlisted for the Stella Prize 2020 * Longlisted for the 2020 Miles Franklin Award “The Big Chill with a dash of Big Little Lies . . . Knife-sharp and deeply alive.” —The Guardian (London) “An insightful, poignant, and fiercely honest novel about female friendship and female aging.” —Sigrid Nunez, National Book Award–winning author of The Friend “Friendship, ambition, love, sexual politics and death: it’s all here in one sharp, funny, heartbreaking, and gorgeously written package. I loved it.” —Paula Hawkins, author of The Girl on the Train Three women in their seventies reunite for one last, life-changing weekend in the beach house of their late friend. Four older women have a lifelong friendship of the best kind: loving, practical, frank, and steadfast. But when Sylvie dies, the ground shifts dangerously for the remaining three. They are Jude, a once-famous restaurateur; Wendy, an acclaimed public intellectual; and Adele, a renowned actress now mostly out of work. Struggling to recall exactly why they’ve remained close all these years, the grieving women gather at Sylvie’s old beach house—not for festivities this time, but to clean it out before it is sold. Can they survive together without her? Without Sylvie to maintain the group’s delicate equilibrium, frustrations build and painful memories press in. Fraying tempers, an elderly dog, unwelcome guests, and too much wine collide in a storm that brings long-buried hurts to the surface—and threatens to sweep away their friendship for good. The Weekend explores growing old and growing up, and what happens when we’re forced to uncover the lies we tell ourselves. Sharply observed and excruciatingly funny, this is a jewel of a book: a celebration of tenderness and friendship from an award-winning writer.

Old friends and lovers reunite for a weekend in a secluded country home after spending decades apart. They excavate old memories and pass clandestine judgments on the wildly divergent paths they’ve taken since their youth. But this isn’t just any reunion, and their conversations about the old days aren’t your typical reminiscences: After twenty-four years, Jörg, a convicted murderer and terrorist, has been released from prison. The announcement of his pardon will send shock waves through the country, but before the announcement, his friends—some of whom were Baader-Meinhof sympathizers or those who clung to them—gather for his first weekend of freedom. They have been summoned by Jörg’s devoted sister, Christiane, whose concern for her brother’s safety is matched only by the unrelenting zeal of Marko, a young man intent on having Jörg continue to fight for the cause. Bernhard Schlink is at his finest as The Weekend unfolds. Passions are pitted against pragmatism, ideas against actions, and hopes against heartbreaking realities.

After spending ten years in the army, James Wharton enters civilian life and settles in the idyllic English countryside with his husband and two dogs, in what seems to be a perfect fairy-tale ending. But only a year later, separated from his husband, James finds himself trying to carve out a new life in London, frequenting the capital's gay clubbing scene in a search for potential friends and lovers. He is quick to discover the phenomenon known as 'chemsex' - a weekend world of drugs, partying and sex. Immediately hooked, James begins to spend hours, often days, with groups of total strangers, locked in drug-induced states of heightened sexual desire. Something for the Weekend compassionately explores the growing popularity of chemsex and considers the motivating factors that have lured people into this underworld. James interviews a variety of characters, from drug dealers and sexual health experts to other gay men who, like himself, became addicted to this often volatile culture, and reveals how chemsex has cemented its status as more than just a short-term craze, becoming a permanent feature in modern gay life.

Write Better Proposals Faster to Accelerate Your Writing Career! Whether you are a true beginner or a seasoned writer looking to secure more book contracts, The Weekend Book Proposal shows you how to take your best ideas and create powerful proposals--quickly and professionally. No need to spend months laboring over a proposal when in just a few days you can write one that will ignite the interest of agents and editors. Ryan G. Van Cleave presents the tools you need to craft an eye-grabbing proposal for your nonfiction, memoir, anthology, textbook, novel, and more. Jam-packed with proven strategies, nuts-and-bolts advice, sample queries and proposals, interviews with publishing experts, and "Hit the Gas" tips for speeding up the proposal process, The Weekend Book Proposal will show you how to succeed and prosper as a writer--and sell your books before you've even written them! The Weekend Book Proposal explains how to: • Write a catchy title and book description. • Create a compelling author bio and chapter outline. • Develop a targeted, engaging concept statement. • Build a strong marketing plan and endorsements list. • Structure your proposals based on those crafted by successful authors.

A little boy spends the weekend at his dad’s new apartment in this picture book about how things change when parents separate — and the important things that stay the same. “This home is home because my dad is here, and it’s nothing like home because my mom isn’t here,” thinks the boy in this story when he enters his dad’s new apartment for the first time. His dad moved out on Monday and now it’s Friday night, the start of his weekend with his dad. The boy and his dad follow their normal weekend routine — they eat eggs for breakfast, play cards and spend time at the park. And then they do the same things on Sunday. It is hard to say goodbye at the end of the weekend, but Dad gives his son a letter to remind him that, even if they can’t always be together, the boy is loved. Naseem Hrab has written a poignant yet hopeful story, strikingly illustrated in Frank Viva’s signature style, about what happens when parents separate, and the new reality of having two homes. Key Text Features author’s note writing inspiration Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.2.3 Describe how characters in a story respond to major events and challenges.

Encroaching work demands—coupled with domestic chores, overbooked schedules, and the incessant pinging of our devices—have taken a toll on what used to be our free time: the weekend. With no space to tune out and recharge, every aspect of our lives is suffering: our health is deteriorating, our social networks (the face-to-face kind) are dissolving, and our productivity is down. The notion of working less and living more, once considered an American virtue, has given way to the belief that you must be “on” 24/7. Award-winning journalist Katrina Onstad, pushes back against this all-work, no-fun ethos. Tired of suffering from Sunday night letdown, she digs into the history, positive psychology, and cultural anthropology of the great missing weekend and how we can revive it. Onstad follows the trail of people, companies, and countries who are vigilantly protecting their time off for joy, adventure, and most important, purpose. Filled with personal and professional inspiration, The Weekend Effect is a thoughtful, well-researched argument to take back those precious 48 hours, and ultimately, to save ourselves.

On the weekend, I looked for a new book. I always read the description first because, you know, I won't read just any old thing. So I read the description for this book and thought it looked okay, so then I read the online sample and laughed so hard that a little bit of pee came out. Okay, a lot of pee came out. ALRIGHT! I PEED SO MUCH I HAD TO CHANGE MY PANTS! There, are you happy now? It's funny, okay? And it isn't all about vomit and farts either (okay, a lot of it is about vomit and farts, but what's wrong with that?) *Every Monday at school, Reggie writes an essay that begins with "On the weekend..." WARNING: You might want to have a spare pair of undies handy while you read about Reggie's weekends.*

On a midsummer weekend, in a country house in upstate New York, three friends, Lyle, Marian, and John, gather on the anniversary of the death of John's brother, who was also Lyle's lover. As Tony's absence haunts each of them in different ways, the reunion is complicated by the presence of Lyle's new lover, a much younger man named Robert, and a faux-Italian dinner guest with a penchant for truth telling. As the seemingly idyllic weekend proceeds, each character is stripped bare, and old memories and new desires create a chemistry that will transform them all.