The Crane Wife

A memoir in essays that expands on the viral sensation “The Crane Wife” with a frank and funny look at love, intimacy, and self in the twenty-first century. From friends and lovers to blood family and chosen family, this “elegant masterpiece” (Roxane Gay, New York Times bestselling author of Hunger) asks what more expansive definitions of love might offer ​us all. A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: TIME, THE GUARDIAN, GARDEN & GUN "Hauser builds their life's inventory out of deconstructed personal narratives, resulting in a reading experience that's rich like a complicated dessert—not for wolfing down but for savoring in small bites." —The New York Times “Clever, heartfelt, and wrenching.” —Time “Brilliant.” —Oprah Daily Ten days after calling off their wedding, CJ Hauser went on an expedition to Texas to study the whooping crane. After a week wading through the gulf, they realized they'd almost signed up to live someone else's life. What if you released yourself from traditional narratives of happiness? What if you looked for ways to leave room for the unexpected? In Hauser’s case, this meant dissecting pop culture touchstone, from The Philadelphia Story to The X Files, to learn how not to lose yourself in a relationship. They attended a robot convention, contemplated grief at John Belushi’s gravesite, and officiated a wedding. Most importantly, they mapped the difference between the stories we’re asked to hold versus those we choose to carry. Told with the late-night barstool directness of your wisest, most bighearted friend, The Crane Wife is a book for everyone whose path doesn't look the way they thought it would; for everyone learning to find joy in the not-knowing and to build a new sort of life story, a new sort of family, a new sort of home to live in.

A retelling of the traditional Japanese tale about a poor sail maker who gains a beautiful but mysterious wife skilled at weaving magical sails.

Shortlisted for the 2013 National Book Awards UK Author of the Year. One night, George Duncan - decent man, a good man - is woken by a noise in his garden. Impossibly, a great white crane has tumbled to earth, shot through its wing by an arrow. Unexpectedly moved, George helps the bird, and from the moment he watches it fly off, his life is transformed. The next day, a kind but enigmatic woman walks into George's shop. Suddenly a new world opens up for George, and one night she starts to tell him the most extraordinary story. Wise, romantic, magical and funny, The Crane Wife is a hymn to the creative imagination and a celebration of the disruptive and redemptive power of love.

After Sachi cares for an injured crane, a beautiful woman asks to be his wife and weaves wonderful silk that makes him a rich man.

In this magical retelling of a Japanese folktale, a mysterious girl weaves silk to help repay the kindness of a boy and his father until the father's greed finally exposes her secret.

A novel by the author of the viral essay sensation "The Crane Wife": When Nolan Grey receives news that his father, a once-prominent biologist, has drowned off Leap's Island, he calls on Elsa, his estranged older half-sister, to help. This, despite the fact that it was he and Elsa who broke the family in the first place. Elsa and Nolan travel to their father's field station off the Gulf Coast, where a group called the Reversalists obsessively study the undowny bufflehead, a rare duck whose loss of waterproof feathers proves, they say, that evolution is running in reverse. On an island that is always looking backward, it's impossible for the siblings to ignore their past, and years of family secrecy threaten to ruin them all over again. Yet, despite themselves, the Greys urgently trek the island to find the so-called Paradise Duck, their father's final obsession, all the while grappling with questions of nature and nurture, intimacy and betrayal, progress and forgiveness.

Based on her work with over a thousand women across the country, psychologist Helene G. Brenner has learned that women feel the impulse to accommodate, adapt and mold themselves to serve others at their own expense. Her solution is an invigorating new approach to women's psychology. The key to transformation, she explains, is not self-improvement, but self-acceptance—affirming and validating what we truly feel and experience and who we already are. Dr. Brenner shows women how to discover and express what they truly want and value, guiding you toward your own Inner Voice. I Know I’m In There Somewhere will show you: - How to embrace, rather than fix, the Inner Voice that has been there all along - How to distinguish the Outer Voices (the expectations of the people around you) from Your Inner Voice (the voice of your true self that goes beyond intuition and guides you wisely towards what is right for you) - What to do when you feel that the essence of who you are is being stifled by external demands and expectations

Presents the story of Philip Benjamin, a young man haunted by images of his staid, middle-class parents and frightened by the thought of revealing his homosexual identity to them.

Sharon Hashimoto explores themes of what is heard and misinterpreted, what is left unexplained, and what is passed down in The Crane Wife. In these pieces, the Sansei poet leafs through old photographs--one of which is of a newlywed couple with the groom's image cut away. Here is the rediscovered piece of barbed wire from outside the Heart Mountain concentration camp. That wire, a lei, and a car trip to an empty lot are all bits of evidence. Her questions address grandparents, mother and father, siblings, and the next generation. Hashimoto also reinvents Japanese folk tales and explores the different voices of the members of a downed JAL jet. Her poems travel in new directions in an attempt to fill in the gaps.

“Crane seems to be carving out a younger, brassier, less dystopic territory to complement the fiction of George Saunders and David Foster Wallace.” —The Quarterly Conversation In her third short story collection, following When the Messenger is Hot and All This Heavenly Glory, Elizabeth Crane presents a quirky cast of characters all searching for, showing off, or seriously questioning what makes them happy. There’s a woman who speaks in all exclamation points, one enamored by her boyfriend’s closet, a zombie reality TV star, a mother whose baby turns into Ethan Hawke, and a woman whose moods are printed on her forehead. Whether breathlessly enthusiastic, serenely calm, or really concentrating right now on their issues, Elizabeth Crane’s characters shine a spotlight on our spirituality-starved, self-improvement-seeking, celebrity-obsessed culture. “In her third collection of inventive short stories, Crane continues to ingeniously satirize our muddled quest for meaning in all the wrong places.” —Booklist “A well-crafted collection of short stories, one whose clarity of tone and theme unites each and every piece into a cohesive whole. At a time when it seems almost antediluvian to be optimistic, Crane’s sincerity stands as a bewitching reminder that there is more to literature than tragedy.” —Bookslut “Zombies, time travelers, reality TV contestants and even a few normalish folks populate the pages of Elizabeth Crane’s quirky, charming new collection.” —PopMatters