Brideshead Regained

At the end of 'Brideshead Revisited', where was Charles Ryder going and what happened next? 'Brideshead Regained', the unauthorised 'sequel' gives us some answers. Opening in 1945 at the funeral of Nanny Hawkins, which brings the characters together, this event triggers Ryder's dramatic account of the intervening years. Appointed a War Artist, he is sent to North Africa to paint Allied war leaders including de Gaulle and Eisenhower. On a painting excursion with Churchill he rediscovers Sebastian -- almost too late. Invading Europe armed with a sketchbook, he witnesses the horrors of Belsen and saves the life of a friend. His artistic reputation rises as his personal life and health collapse. The book ends on a moment of high and very human drama. Written with polished style, accomplished characterisation, very English humour and a compelling plot, Michael Johnston moves the Brideshead story on and leaves the reader hoping for even more.

"A work of art as rich and subtle and unnerving as anything its author has ever done" (New Yorker), The Loved One is Evelyn Waugh's cutting satire of 1940s California and the Anglo-American cultural divide. Following the death of a friend, the poet and pets' mortician Dennis Barlow finds himself entering the artificial Hollywood paradise of the Whispering Glades Memorial Park. Within its golden gates, death, American-style, is wrapped up and sold like a package holiday--and Dennis gets drawn into a bizarre love triangle with Aimée Thanatogenos, a naïve Californian corpse beautician, and Mr. Joyboy, a master of the embalmer's art. Waugh's dark and savage satire depicts a world where reputation, love, and death cost a very great deal.

“The satisfying conclusion to Gardam’s Old Filth trilogy offers exquisite prose, wry humor, and keen insights into aging and death” (The New Yorker). While Old Filth introduced readers to Sir Edward Feathers, his dreadful childhood, and his decades-long marriage, The Man in the Wooden Hat was his wife Betty’s story. Last Friends is Terence Veneering’s turn. His beginnings were not those of the usual establishment grandee. Filth’s hated rival in court and in love is the son of a Russian acrobat marooned in the English midlands and a local girl. He escapes the war and later emerges in the Far East as a man of panache and fame. The Bar treats his success with suspicion: Where did this handsome, brilliant Slav come from? This exquisite story of Veneering, Filth, and their circle tells a bittersweet tale of friendship and grace and of the disappointments and consolations of age. They are all, finally, each other’s last friend as this magnificent series ends with the deep and abiding satisfaction that only great literature provides. “[Gardam’s] prose sparkles with wit, compassion and humor. She keeps us entertained, and she keeps us guessing. Be thankful for her books. Be thankful for this trilogy, which is ultimately an elegy, created with deep affection.” —The Washington Post “Restores us to an era rich in spectacle and bristling with insinuation and intrigue. Vivid, spacious, superbly witty, and refreshingly brisk . . . the story (and the author) will endure.” —The Boston Globe “All three Gardam books are beautifully written but it’s a pleasure to note that Last Friends is the most enjoyable, the funniest and the most touching.” —National Post

Brideshead Revisited, The Sacred and Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder is a novel by English writer Evelyn Waugh, the life and romances of the protagonist Charles Ryder, most especially his friendship with the Flytes, a family of wealthy English Catholics who live in a palatial mansion called Brideshead Castle. Ryder has relationships with two of the Flytes: Sebastian and Julia. The novel explores themes including nostalgia for the age of English aristocracy, Catholicism, and the nearly overt homosexuality of Sebastian Flyte and s coterie at Oxford University. A faithful and well-received television adaptation of the novel was produced in an 11-part miniseries by Granada Television in 1981.

This is a comprehensive and detailed encyclopedia for readers of Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited, one of the most popular and critically acclaimed novels of the twentieth century. It contains 175 entries on all aspects of the novel, covering such topics as the novel's main characters; cultural, literary, and political references; themes; organization; homosexuality; the novel's critical reception; and its film adaptions. It also pays particular attention to the importance of Catholicism in the story, discussing such subjects as sin, good and evil, divine grace, time, art, and love. A helpful list of recommended readings is included.

THE #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING JACK REACHER SERIES THAT INSPIRED TWO MAJOR MOTION PICTURES AND THE STREAMING SERIES REACHER A heart-racing page-turner that hits the ground running and then accelerates all the way to a colossal showdown “Jack Reacher is the coolest continuing series character now on offer.”—Stephen King, in Entertainment Weekly There’s deadly trouble in the corn country of Nebraska . . . and Jack Reacher walks right into it. First he falls foul of the Duncans, a local clan that has terrified an entire county into submission. But it’s the unsolved case of a missing child, already decades old, that Reacher can’t let go. The Duncans want Reacher gone—and it’s not just past secrets they’re trying to hide. They’re awaiting a secret shipment that’s already late—and they have the kind of customers no one can afford to annoy. For as dangerous as the Duncans are, they’re just the bottom of a criminal food chain stretching halfway around the world. For Reacher, it would have made much more sense to keep on going, to put some distance between himself and the hard-core trouble that’s bearing down on him. For Reacher, that was also impossible.

New York Times bestselling author David Duchovny reimagines the Irish mythological figure of Emer in Miss Subways, a darkly comic fantasy love story set in New York City. Emer is just a woman living in New York City who takes the subway, buys ice cream from the bodega on the corner, has writerly aspirations, and lives with her boyfriend, Con. But is this life she lives the only path she’s on? Taking inspiration from the myth of Emer and Cuchulain and featuring an all-star cast of mythical figures from all over the world, David Duchovny’s darkly funny fantasy novel Miss Subways is one woman’s trippy, mystical journey down parallel tracks of time and love. On the way, Emer will battle natural and supernatural forces to find her true voice, power, and destiny. A fairy tale of love lost and regained, Miss Subways is also a love letter to the city that enchants us all: New York. "Fresh off a new season of the evergreen X-Files and a late-blooming music career, the multitalented Duchovny (Bucky F*cking Dent, 2016, etc.) offers a spooky domestic drama that is equal parts Nick Hornby and Neil Gaiman... An entertaining, postmodern fairy tale that tests the boundaries of love and fate." - Kirkus Reviews

In this classic Catholic novel, Bernanos movingly recounts the life of a young French country priest who grows to understand his provincial parish while learning spiritual humility himself. Awarded the Grand Prix for Literature by the Academie Fran?aise, The Diary of a Country Priest was adapted into an acclaimed film by Robert Bresson. A book of the utmost sensitiveness and compassion? it is a work of deep, subtle and singularly encompassing art.? ? New York Times Book Review