The Foursome

Four young women are sitting at the kitchen table. Blanche, in an exaggerated manner, readjusts her flowered shawl over her ample shoulders and picks up the deck of cards. With her usual grand gesture, she flips a card in an arc to each of the four waiting piles. Sophie places hunks of bubbling kugel onto four waiting plates. Gertie gathers her cards carefully and fans them. Blanche reaches over to Maggie’s pile as Maggie scoops them into a neat set. She slaps Blanche’s hand away. “Lay off,” she says. Blanche says, “Gimme those. One stuck together.” “Says who?” “Says me.” And so, over kugel and cards, another weekly lunch of quick-witted bickering, laughing, insulting, and horseplay begins. And the revealing of their deepest-held secrets ensues, the result of which is an outpouring of tears, followed by soothing, and finally, relief in the arms of trusted friends. Blanche is the flamboyant, dynamic member of the foursome that never does play a hand of poker. She meets her true love, shy and quiet Aaron, when they are nine years old. Her attraction to him is part of her story. But Buzz, her older brother, holds the key to the grief she hides beneath her flashy exterior. Maggie is Blanche’s sparring partner, though they have a deep attachment that gives them special insight into each other’s pain. Maggie’s pervasive guilt over her conflict with her Church and family and Catholic beliefs is her story. And her sharpened sensitivity enables her to intuit Sophie’s story. Sophie’s marriage to Jack flounders when their infant son, Leon, dies of pneumonia. Her maternal need yearns for another child. Alyosha, a traveling stranger, lingers for a short time in Sophie’s neighborhood before moving on. Sophie’s decision is abrupt and certain, leaving her carrying a deep-seated, lifelong mystery. Gertie is single, and Reuben is courting her. Reuben is refreshing, engaging, and resourceful. Gertie is attracted, but she has a reservation regarding one aspect of Reuben’s behavior. It speaks to the core of her fear. THE FOURSOME is a story of friendship. A safe haven, trust, and wisdom are the crucial qualities of a true friendship. Blanche, Maggie, Sophie, and Gertie have them all.

Golf fiction's finest hustler--The Green's Eddie Caminetti--returns in a laugh-out-loud novel featuring a foursome of upwardly mobile golf fanatics who get their just rewards. Tired of hustling for something as ordinary as money, Eddie, in The Foursome, sets his sights slightly higher than other men's pockets: he goes after their souls. He now presides over Swithen Bairn, an exquisite secret golf course that's a kind of twisted Fantasy Island where the arrogant and pompous find their cherished dreams suddenly transformed into their worst nightmares. Enter the foursome of the title, four enviably successful businessmen/golf junkies lured to Swithen Bairn by an irresistible offer: "The most memorable golf vacation you ever had or you don't pay." It's been said that you can learn more about people during one round of golf than you can living next door to them for six months, and in one round with Eddie Caminetti these four hapless sinners learn more about themselves than they could have in six years of analysis. By the end of their second match, the dizzying amount of money at stake will be the least of their worries, and "memorable" won't even begin to describe this bizarre vacation. Mixing equal parts of suspense, hilarity, and raw human drama, Troon McAllister deftly shows readers what can happen when money, friendship, ambition, and greed converge explosively in a single round of golf. As Eddie Caminetti himself puts it in The Foursome, "Why do you think they call the devil Scratch?"

A captivating, spirited account of the intense relationship among four artists whose strong personalities and aesthetic ideals drew them together, pulled them apart, and profoundly influenced the very shape of twentieth-century art. New York, 1921: acclaimed photographer Alfred Stieglitz celebrates the success of his latest exhibition—the centerpiece, a series of nude portraits of his soon-to-be wife, the young Georgia O'Keeffe. The exhibit acts as a turning point for the painter poised to make her entrance into the art scene. There she meets Rebecca Salsbury, the fiancé of Stieglitz’s protégé, Paul Strand, marking the start of a bond between the couples that will last more than a decade and reverberate throughout their lives. In the years that followed, O'Keeffe and Stieglitz become the preeminent couple in American modern art, spurring on each other's creativity. Observing their relationship leads Salsbury to encourage new artistic possibilities for Strand and to rethink her own potential as an artist.

Darius Crawford thinks his life is on track. He's just been promoted, had his dream house built, and convinced his newly widowed sister into entering college. Everything's coming up roses. That is, until his father announces he's in the beginning stages of Alzheimer's and has to move in with him, and with a nurse, no less!

Welcome, foolish mortals, to Disney Press' spookiest chapter book series yet: Tales from the Haunted Mansion! Based on the attractions from the Disney Parks, each new book tells the story of one of the Haunted Mansion's 999 ghosts. With eerie illustrations throughout and a beautiful three-piece cloth cover, the books are designed to look like they came straight from the library in the Haunted Mansion. Tales from the Haunted Mansion is a fun, spooky ride, just like the attraction from the Disney Parks. And if readers are familiar with the ride, they'll see elements of it throughout the entire story, from items straight of the Mansion (are those pictures stretching?) to lyrics from the narration that is heard in each Doom Buggy. In this bone-chilling book, you will hear the terrifying tales of the Fearsome Foursome--four kids who look to out-scare each other. But just wait until they hear my spooky stories. Who am I? I am Amicus Arcane, your librarian and host. Your Ghost Host. So read on... if you dare!

Golf fiction’s finest hustler—The Green's Eddie Caminetti—returns in a laugh-out-loud novel featuring a foursome of upwardly mobile golf fanatics who get their just rewards. Tired of hustling for something as ordinary as money, Eddie Caminetti sets his sights slightly higher than other men's pockets: he goes after their souls. He now presides over Swithen Bairn, an exquisite secret golf course that’s a kind of twisted Fantasy Island where the arrogant and pompous find their cherished dreams suddenly transformed into their worst nightmares. When four enviably successful business/golf junkies are lured to Swithen Bairn by an irresistible offer— "the most memorable golf vacation you ever had or you don't pay" —the old adage that you can learn more about people during one round of golf than you can by living next door to them for six months comes hilariously and powerfully true. Mixing equal parts of suspense, hilarity, and raw human drama, Troon McAllister deftly shows readers what can happen when money, friendship, ambition, and greed converge explosively in a single round of golf.

"This is a novel about two great American games - golf and success." "In a rush of memory, wistful and funny and piercingly accurate, John Spooner carries us to the snug little Boston suburb of "Brookwood" in the 1950s, to the start of the journey of four upwardly mobile young men. They are different in their family backgrounds but united in their ambition - they are perfect children of their time." "Starting their careers as caddies, the four boys become lifelong friends and golfing companions, bound together by a fierce competitiveness and by a childhood secret that won't let go of their imaginations. Ceremonially, they hold five-year reunion golf tourneys, striving to best one another not only at golf but at money and women." "Dickie Rosenberg, Duke Hennesey, Freddy Temple, and Stan Singer: no one looking at these winsome boys could have foreseen the millionaires they would become a clothing manufacturer, a real estate developer, a venture capitalist, a movie mogul. Yet they learned their lessons early, and their twists and turns of character, their desires, their fatal flaws, were present in childhood. We watch them grow into adults with a sense of inevitability, a comic inevitability that is still tinged with sadness." "Spanning forty years of American life, The Foursome brings us face to face with the sort of men who are now at the peak of their corporate careers, the men who run American business. The members of the foursome, for all their privilege and success, remain driven and selfdoubting. This is a novel rich in social comedy, with a serious undercurrent that reveals much about an entire generation of men - written by a superbly perceptive student of upper-middle-class America."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Collects the private correspondence between Georgia O'Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz, revealing the ups and downs of their marriage, their thoughts on their work, and their friendships with other artists.

Rebecca, Daniel, Alex and Isabel have been best friends since university. Rebecca married Daniel, Alex married Isabel and, for twenty years, they have been inseparable. But all that is about to change... When Alex walks out on Isabel, Rebecca thinks things can't get any worse. But then she finds out the reason why and she's left harbouring a secret she'd rather forget... And there�s more upheaval to come in Rebecca�s life as her emaciated, neurotic, self-obsessed colleague, Lorna � her arch nemesis at work � suddenly becomes a regular feature in her social life. Rebecca�s once-happy foursome is now a distant memory and with hearts broken and friendships fractured, it seems that change is never a good thing. Or is it?

Tara Narang is freshly divorced. Arpita Bhatia is a clichéd South-Delhi daughter-in-law. Upasana Qazi is in a live-in relationship. Sana Chopra is a serial dater. The gossip-driven friendship of these four women is truly tested, when over the course of a fateful evening, catastrophic secrets are revealed that makes them question how well they really know each other! Their lives are now twisted and intertwined in ways that they never imagined! Can these women piece their lives back together and become a true Foursome?