Where I Live Now

An intimate and uplifting book about finding renewal and hope through grief and loss. “It was a terrible life; it was an enchanted life; it was a blessed life. And, of course, one day it ended.” —Sharon Butala In the tradition of Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking, Diana Athill’s Somewhere Towards the End, and Atul Gawande’s Being Mortal comes a revelatory new book from one of our beloved writers. When Sharon Butala’s husband, Peter, died unexpectedly, she found herself with no place to call home. Torn by grief and loss, she fled the ranchlands of southwest Saskatchewan and moved to the city, leaving almost everything behind. A lifetime of possessions was reduced to a few boxes of books, clothes, and keepsakes. But a lifetime of experience went with her, and a limitless well of memory—of personal failures, of a marriage that everybody said would not last but did, of the unbreakable bonds of family. Reinventing herself in an urban landscape was painful, and facing her new life as a widow tested her very being. Yet out of this hard-won new existence comes an astonishingly frank, compassionate and moving memoir that offers not only solace and hope but inspiration to those who endure profound loss. Often called one of this country’s true visionaries, Sharon Butala shares her insights into the grieving process and reveals the small triumphs and funny moments that kept her going. Where I Live Now is profound in its understanding of the many homes women must build for themselves in a lifetime.

The New York Times–bestselling author of So Long contemplates the human condition in this short story collection for fans of Grace Paley & Alice Munro. The elusive nature of happiness is a compelling theme in Where I Live Now. The survivors in these stories—many of them society's marginal or excluded people, fighting alcohol or drug addiction, bearing emotional scars—recognize it all too well. They mourn the lost dreams of youth, the roads not taken. They suffer the damage life inflicts: the ache of loneliness, the pain of separation, the fear of death. Set mainly in Los Angeles, Lucia Berlin’s gritty working-class stories bridge the gap between the Americas—rich and poor, North and South, Anglo and Hispanic. While her style has been compared to Raymond Carver’s, and her dream- and drink-addicted characters to Richard Yates’s, her fictional territory and fatalistic humor are hers alone. Praise for Where I Live Now “Berlin’s literary model is Chekhov, but there are extra-literary models too, including the extended jazz solo, with its surges, convolutions, and asides. This is writing of a very high order.” —August Kleinzahler, London Review of Books “This remarkable collection occasionally put me in mind of Annie Proulx’s Accordion Crimes, with its sweep of American origins and places. Berlin is our Scheherazade, continually surprising her readers with a startling variety of voices, vividly drawn characters, and settings alive with sight and sound.” —Barbara Barnard, American Book Review “Berlin is marvelously successful, placing her memorable characters in gripping situations, plumbing their messed-up lives for pathos and allowing us to see deeply into their souls.” —Publishers Weekly

“Every war has turning points and every person too.” Fifteen-year-old Daisy is sent from Manhattan to England to visit her aunt and cousins she’s never met: three boys near her age, and their little sister. Her aunt goes away on business soon after Daisy arrives. The next day bombs go off as London is attacked and occupied by an unnamed enemy. As power fails, and systems fail, the farm becomes more isolated. Despite the war, it’s a kind of Eden, with no adults in charge and no rules, a place where Daisy’s uncanny bond with her cousins grows into something rare and extraordinary. But the war is everywhere, and Daisy and her cousins must lead each other into a world that is unknown in the scariest, most elemental way. A riveting and astonishing story.

The author writes of her experiences dealing with the death of her husband and adjusting to life in the city after leaving the ranchlands of southwest Saskatchewan.

A close-up examination and exploration, How We Live Now challenges our old concepts of what it means to be a family and have a home, opening the door to the many diverse and thriving experiments of living in twenty-first century America. Across America and around the world, in cities and suburbs and small towns, people from all walks of life are redefining our “lifespaces”—the way we live and who we live with. The traditional nuclear family in their single-family home on a suburban lot has lost its place of prominence in contemporary life. Today, Americans have more choices than ever before in creating new ways to live and meet their personal needs and desires. Social scientist, researcher, and writer Bella DePaulo has traveled across America to interview people experimenting with the paradigm of how we live. In How We Live Now, she explores everything from multi-generational homes to cohousing communities where one’s “family” is made up of friends and neighbors to couples “living apart together” to single-living, and ultimately uncovers a pioneering landscape for living that throws the old blueprint out the window. Through personal interviews and stories, media accounts, and in-depth research, How We Live Now explores thriving lifespaces, and offers the reader choices that are freer, more diverse, and more attuned to our modern needs for the twenty-first century and beyond.

Printz Award-winning author Meg Rosoff's latest novel is a gorgeous and unforgettable page-turner about the relationship between parents and children, love and loss. Mila has an exceptional talent for reading a room—sensing hidden facts and unspoken emotions from clues that others overlook. So when her father’s best friend, Matthew, goes missing from his upstate New York home, Mila and her beloved father travel from London to find him. She collects information about Matthew from his belongings, from his wife and baby, from the dog he left behind and from the ghosts of his past—slowly piecing together the story everyone else has missed. But just when she’s closest to solving the mystery, a shocking betrayal calls into question her trust in the one person she thought she could read best.

Justin Case is convinced fate has in for him. And he's right. After finding his younger brother teetering on the edge of his balcony, fifteen-year-old David Case realizes the fragility of life and senses impending doom. Without looking back, he changes his name to Justin and assumes a new identity, new clothing and new friends, and dares to fall in love with the seductive Agnes Day. With his imaginary dog Boy in tow, Justin struggles to fit into his new role and above all, to survive in a world where tragedy is around every corner. He's got to be prepared, just in case.

From the 2016 recipient of the Astrid Lindgren award and author of international bestseller How I Live Now, National Book Award finalist Picture Me Gone, and most recently Jonathan Unleashed Finn was a beautiful orphan. H was a prep school misfit. On a September afternoon many years ago they met on a beach on the coast of England, near the ancient fisherman’s hut Finn was squatting in with his woodstove, a case of books, a striped blanket and a cat. H insinuates his way into Finn’s life—his blazing wood fires and fishing expeditions. Their friendship deepens, offering H the freedom and human connection that has always eluded him. But all too soon the idyll of their relationship is shaken by a heart-wrenching scandal. What I Was is the unforgettable story of H at the end of his life looking back on this friendship, which has shaped and obsessed him for nearly a century.

A tender and magical tale from the 2016 recipient of the Astrid Lindgren award and author of international bestseller How I Live Now, National Book Award finalist Picture Me Gone, and most recently Jonathan Unleashed Pell Ridley, daughter of a good-for-nothing preacher in mid-nineteenth century England, has watched her mother crushed by the burden of too many children and too little money. Unwilling to repeat her fate, Pell runs away on her wedding day taking only her beautiful, white horse. But, as she journeys through a strange world of gypsies in search of a new life, Pell finds that her ties to home refuse to release her. Like the works of Philip Pullman and Sue Monk Kidd, The Bride's Farewell will resonate with readers of all ages as it grapples with timeless questions of how to live, how to love, and how to be true to one's self.