What Is Left Over After

Gaelle has a dream job working for a fashion magazine, and a husband who loves her. Life should be perfect, but life does not always go according to plan. Feeling lost and alone, Gaelle flees to a tiny seaside town on the other side of the country. As she revisits the legacy of a strange, sometimes magical childhood in France, Gaelle finds unexpected help from a thirteenyear-old stranger.As if she was experiencing her childhood all over again, she must ask: when you lose everything you love, what is left over after?

Presenting a powerful story of motherhood and loss, this novel explores the complexities of grief and disconnection—and what it takes to become connected again. Gaelle, a 30-year-old beauty editor for a fashion magazine, she is ambivalent about motherhood, and she sleeps around—not because she does not love her heart-surgeon husband Jason, but because the very fact of love is a terrifying thing. She finds it easier to keep moving, in the heart and the mind, than to stay still and own who she is. A multi-layered story of marriage, this novel employs delicate yet powerful prose that builds to a moving revelation.

With heart, intelligence and a rare ability to illuminate the struggles inherent in ordinary lives, Tom Perrotta's The Leftovers—now adapted into an HBO series—is a startling, thought-provoking novel about love, connection and loss. What if—whoosh, right now, with no explanation—a number of us simply vanished? Would some of us collapse? Would others of us go on, one foot in front of the other, as we did before the world turned upside down? That's what the bewildered citizens of Mapleton, who lost many of their neighbors, friends and lovers in the event known as the Sudden Departure, have to figure out. Because nothing has been the same since it happened—not marriages, not friendships, not even the relationships between parents and children. Kevin Garvey, Mapleton's new mayor, wants to speed up the healing process, to bring a sense of renewed hope and purpose to his traumatized community. Kevin's own family has fallen apart in the wake of the disaster: his wife, Laurie, has left to join the Guilty Remnant, a homegrown cult whose members take a vow of silence; his son, Tom, is gone, too, dropping out of college to follow a sketchy prophet named Holy Wayne. Only Kevin's teenaged daughter, Jill, remains, and she's definitely not the sweet "A" student she used to be. Kevin wants to help her, but he's distracted by his growing relationship with Nora Durst, a woman who lost her entire family on October 14th and is still reeling from the tragedy, even as she struggles to move beyond it and make a new start. A New York Times Notable Book for 2011 A Washington Post Notable Fiction Book for 2011 A USA Today 10 Books We Loved Reading in 2011 Title One of NPR's 10 Best Novels of 2011

With the humor and poignancy of Joan Bauer and Lynda Mullaly Hunt, this story reminds readers that they have a right to a voice, that it's okay to say how you feel, and that some leftovers are absolutely delicious! Fizzy is a good Southern girl who just wants to be perfect. And win the Southern Living cook-off. The being perfect part is hard though, since her parents’ divorced and everything in her life has changed. Wary of her too-perfect stepmom and her mom’s neat-freak, dismissive boyfriend, she’s often angry or upset and feels like a guest in both homes. She tells herself to face facts: She’s a “leftover” kid from a marriage that her parents want to forget. But she has to keep all of that to herself, because a good Southern girl never yells, or throws fits, or says anything that might hurt other people’s feelings—instead she throws her shoulders back, says yes ma’am, and tries to do better. So Fizzy tries her best, but it’s hard to stay quiet when her family keeps getting more complicated. Fortunately, the Southern Living cook-off gives her a welcome distraction, as do her new friends Miyoko and Zach, who have parent issues of their own.

In over 200 recipes, Jessica Fisher shows budget-conscious cooks how they can eat remarkably well without breaking the bank. "Good Cheap Eats" serves up 70 three-course dinners main course, side, and dessert all for less than ten dollars for a family of four. Chapters include "Something Meatier," on traditional meat-centered dinners, "Stretching It," which shows how to flavor and accent meat so that you are using less than usual but still getting lots of flavor, and "Company Dinners," which proves that you can entertain well on the cheap. The hard-won wisdom, creative problem-solving techniques, and culinary imagination she brings to the task have been chronicled lovingly in her widely read blog Good Cheap Eats. Now, with the publication of the book "Good Cheap Eats, "she shows budget-challenged, or simply penny-pinching, home cooks how they can save loads of money on food and still eat smashingly well."

Daily Motivation. Get yours today! Specifications: Cover Finish: Matte Dimensions: 6" x 9" (15.24 x 22.86 cm) Interior: Blank, White Paper, Unlined Pages: 110

They were an inseparable tribe of childhood friends whose world was torn apart by the First World War. Some were lost in battle, and those who survived have had their lives unimaginably upended, scattered to Ceylon and India, France and Germany, and, inevitably, back to Britain. Now, at the dawn of the 1920s, all are trying to pick up the pieces. At the center of Louis de Bernières’s riveting novel are Daniel, an RAF flying ace, and Rosie, a wartime nurse. As their marriage is slowly revealed to be built on lies, Daniel finds solace—and, sometimes, family—with other women, and Rosie draws her religion around herself like a carapace. Here too are Rosie’s sisters—a bohemian, a minister’s wife, and a spinster, each seeking purpose and happiness in her own unconventional way; and Daniel’s military brother, unable to find his footing in a peaceful world. Told in brief, dramatic chapters, So Much Life Left Over follows the stories of these old friends over the decades as their paths re-cross or their ties fray, as they test loyalties and love, face survivor’s grief and guilt, and adjust to a new world.

A little lost witch undergoes a magical transformation when she’s loved by a human family in this heartwarming story. When Felina, a little witch, breaks her broom on Halloween and can’t fly home, she is stuck with the Doon family and their black cat, Itchabody, for an entire year. Although she’s homesick and unhappy, the Doon parents and their daughter, Lucinda, do their best to make Felina feel welcome. (And she has no trouble with Itchabody at all!) As time passes, the mischievous Felina learns what it means to be part of a family—and how, with love, she will always belong. This timeless tale, originally published in 1971 and cherished ever since, brims with witchy whimsy and will find a home in the hearts of a new generation of readers.

‘Scattered with inspiring life-stories of courageous women.’ The Guardian In the early years of the People’s Republic, the Communist Party sought to transform gender relations. Yet those gains have been steadily eroded in China’s post-socialist era. Contrary to the image presented by China’s media, women in China have experienced a dramatic rollback of rights and gains relative to men. In Leftover Women, Leta Hong Fincher exposes shocking levels of structural discrimination against women, and the broader damage this has caused to China’s economy, politics, and development.