Whatever Normal Is

In the fourth volume of a series set in Minneapolis in the 1960s, three friends navigate relationships and new questions about love and identity After three years of high school, Margaret still isn’t any closer to what she wants: to sing and dance on Broadway, to be a model like Twiggy, to be madly in love with someone other than Paul McCartney. It’s not much to ask, but with her friends Grace and Isabelle she’s willing to adjust her goals for the summer to a job, a car, and a boyfriend. When Grace gets a job downtown at the Emerald Cafe, where Teddy, a dreamy college kid, tends the meat buffet, it looks like she, at least, is almost halfway there—until Teddy asks for Margaret’s phone number. “Normal” might not be all it’s cracked up to be (high school graduation, marriage, and housewifery, really?), but as Teddy complicates the girls’ friendship, it slowly becomes apparent that “normal” might mean something different, and infinitely trickier, to him. As the old friends, with adulthood looming, navigate the newly confusing territory of love and sexuality and identity, everything they thought they knew is suddenly, frighteningly thrown into question—and they discover that between the dream of stardom and the certainty of housekeeping there’s a vast unsuspected world of peril and possibility. With all the tenderness, heartache, and humor of her earlier novels about Margaret, Grace, and Isabelle, in Whatever Normal Is Jane St. Anthony takes the friends, and her readers, to a place beyond normal—to a future as satisfying as it is promising.

LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE: A wondrously wise, genuinely unputdownable new novel from Sally Rooney, winner of the 2017 Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award (at 26, tied with Zadie Smith for the youngest-ever recipient)--the quintessential coming-of-age love story for our time. Connell Waldron is one of the most popular boys in his small-town high school--he is a star of the football team, an excellent student, and never wanting for attention from girls. The one thing he doesn't have is money. Marianne Sheridan, a classmate of Connell's, has the opposite problem. Marianne is plain-looking, odd, and stubborn, and while her family is well-off, she has no friends to speak of. There is, however, a deep and undeniable connection between the two teenagers, one that develops into a secret relationship. Everything changes when both Connell and Marianne are accepted to Trinity College. Suddenly Marianne is well-liked and elegant, holding court with her intellectual friends while Connell hangs at the sidelines, not quite as fluent in language of the elite. Throughout their years at university, Marianne and Connell circle each other, falling in and out of romance but never straying far from where they started. And as Marianne experiments with an increasingly dangerous string of boyfriends, Connell must decide how far he is willing to go to save his oldest friend. Sally Rooney brings her brilliant psychological acuity and perfectly spare prose to a novel that explores the subtleties of class, the electricity of first love, and the inescapable challenges of family and friendships. Normal People is a book that you will read in one sitting, and then immediately share with your friends.

The Salmon of Doubt is Douglas Adams's indispensable guide to life, the universe and everything. It includes short stories and eleven chapters of a Dirk Gently novel that Douglas Adams was working on at the time of his death, and features an introduction by Stephen Fry. This sublime collection dips into the wit and wisdom of the man behind The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, uncovering his unique comic musings on everything from his school-trousers to malt whisky and from the letter Y through to his own nose, via atheism, hangovers and fried eggs. These hilarious collected writings reveal the warmth, enthusiasm and ferocious intelligence behind this most English of comic writers; a man who was virtually an unofficial member of the Monty Python team. Douglas Adams on his passion for P. G. Wodehouse, The Beatles and the perfect cup of tea alone make this a must-have collection and a remarkable sign-off from one of the best loved writers of all time. Start from the beginning of the surreal Dirk Gently series with Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency.

We are proud to present the very first Special Edition in the enchanting NYT bestselling Whatever After series. Down the rabbit hole . . . I'm spending the day with my best friends, Frankie and Robin, and -- UGH -- snobby Penny. I'm not expecting anything magical to happen, until Frankie falls into a mysterious hole behind Penny's house . . . and we all wind up in the story of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland!I've visited fairy tales before. But in Wonderland, everything is topsy-turvy. There are potions that make you grow, cakes that make you shrink, bossy caterpillars, and a horrible Queen of Hearts who wants to put us on trial.Now we have to:- Solve a riddle from the Cheshire cat - Attend a wacky tea party with the Mad Hatter- Become BFFs with Alice- And find Frankie. . . Or we'll be stuck in Wonderland for good!This special edition is extra-long, extra-enchanting, and comes with puzzles, games, and a Q&A with the author!

A New York Times bestseller: The “magnificent” memoir by one of the bravest and most original writers of our time—“A tour de force of literature and love” (Vogue). One of the New York Times’ “50 Best Memoirs of the Past 50 Years” Jeanette Winterson’s bold and revelatory novels have established her as a major figure in world literature. Her internationally best-selling debut, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, tells the story of a young girl adopted by Pentecostal parents, and has become a staple of required reading in contemporary fiction classes. Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? is a “singular and electric” memoir about a life’s work to find happiness (The New York Times). It is a book full of stories: about a girl locked out of her home, sitting on the doorstep all night; about a religious zealot disguised as a mother who has two sets of false teeth and a revolver in the dresser, waiting for Armageddon; about growing up in a north England industrial town now changed beyond recognition; about the universe as a cosmic dustbin. It is the story of how a painful past, rose to haunt the author later in life, sending her on a journey into madness and out again, in search of her biological mother. It is also a book about the power of literature, showing how fiction and poetry can form a string of guiding lights, or a life raft that supports us when we are sinking. Witty, acute, fierce, and celebratory, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? is a tough-minded story of the search for belonging—for love, identity, home, and a mother.

"Teenaged Quinn, an aspiring screenwriter, copes with his sister's death while his best friend forces him back out into the world to face his reality"--

They say before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves. For James Mercer, the financial ruin of his family by the institutions they trusted can never be undone. It shattered everyone, leaving him with a burning need to right the wrongs they suffered. He will stop at nothing to recoup what they are owed. It's not theft, it's payback. Until his solo crusade falls foul of the very people he seeks to rob - the one per centers, the people who own the bulk of the world's wealth. Soon he is putting together a crew to carry out one last robbery, to undertake one last job. Success will restore his family's fortunes, but failure will destroy them forever. Packed with relentless action and the sort of riveting authenticity only Andy McNab can provide, Whatever it Takestells the story of one man's extraordinary pursuit of justice against devastating odds, a story as hard and real and controversial as any of today's headlines, which will show the world as it really is... The latest Nick Stone thriller, DOWN TO THE WIRE, is available in hardback now.

An invigorating work that identifies obstructions to transformative change in higher education and offers paths to break through. In “Whatever It Is, I’m Against It,” president emeritus of Macalester College Brian Rosenberg draws on decades of higher education experience to expose the entrenched structures, practices, and cultures that inhibit meaningful postsecondary reform, even as institutions face serious challenges to their financial and educational models. A lively insider’s account, the book pinpoints factors that hinder the ability of U.S. colleges and universities to be creative and entrepreneurial amid calls to improve affordability, access, and equity for students. Through pithy personal stories of divisive town hall meetings, multiyear college governance battles, and attempts at curricular reform, Rosenberg illustrates internal and external dynamics that impede institutional evolution. Pressures such as declining enrollment, escalating costs, and an oversupply of PhDs in academia have long signaled a grave need for reform within a profession that, as Rosenberg ruefully acknowledges, lacks organizational flexibility, depends greatly on reputation and ranking, and retains traditions, from the academic calendar to grading systems, that have remained essentially the same for decades. Rosenberg looks outside the U.S. system to find possible antidotes in innovative higher education models such as student-centered and experiential learning approaches. This thought-provoking work offers ample evidence for presidents, chancellors, deans, provosts, and faculty to consider as they plan their missions to achieve institutional transformation.