"Told from the perspective of a female physicist in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a story that explores the nature of friendship, romantic love, and motherhood"-- Helen Clapp's breakthrough work on five-dimensional spacetime landed her a tenured professorship at MIT; her popular books explain physics in plain terms. Helen disdains notions of the supernatural in favor of rational thought and proven ideas. So it's perhaps especially vexing for her when,...

"In this pair of novellas and two stories, Russo's characters bear little similarity to the blue-collar citizens we're familiar with from most of his novels. In "Horseman," a tenured professor confronts a young plagiarist as well as her own weaknesses as the Thanksgiving holiday approaches--"And after that, who knew?" In "Intervention," a realtor facing an ominous medical prognosis finds himself in his father's shadow while he presses forward, or...

Coleman Silk is a respected professor at a New England college who suddenly finds his life unraveling after a comment he makes about some African-American students is misinterpreted as a racial slur. As the scandal heats up, Nathan Zuckerman, a writer researching a biography of Silk, begins to dig deeply into Silk's life. Eventually, matters are made worse when Coleman's affair with a young married janitor named Faunia Farley is exposed. But amid...

A CLASSIC FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE THINGS THEY CARRIED

In this wildly funny, brilliantly inventive novel, Tim O'Brien has created the ultimate character for our times. Thomas Chippering, a 6'6" professor of linguistics, is a man torn between two obsessions: the desperate need to win back his former wife, the faithless Lorna Sue, and a craving to test his erotic charms on every woman he meets.
But...

"Sarah is a young professor struggling to prove herself in a workplace controlled by the charming and manipulative Alan Hawthorne. A renowned scholar and television host, Hawthorne rakes in million-dollar grants for the university where Sarah works--so his inappropriate treatment of female colleagues behind closed doors has gone unchallenged for years. And Sarah is his newest target. When Hawthorne's advances become threatening, Sarah is left with...

"It's opening night, but far from glamorous. Alice is performing in a local Bay Area production of The Winter's Tale, the complete opposite of what she had envisioned for her career back home in Los Angeles. She doesn't have dreams of superstardom per se, but the basement theatre in a wildfire-choked town simply isn't ideal. To make matters worse, her best friend Sadie is not even coming. Pragmatic and serious Sadie and flighty, creative Alice have...

"An outcast her entire life, Corvina Clemm is left adrift after losing her mother. When she receives the admission letter from the mysterious University of Verenmore, she accepts it as a sign from the universe. The last thing she expects though is an old, secluded castle on top of a mountain riddled with secrets, deceit, and death. An enigma his entire life, Vad Deverell likes being a closed book but knowing exactly everything that happens in the...

"After a lifetime of taking care of his impossible but irresistible sister and his cherished niece, Tom is finally ready to put himself first. An architect specializing in tiny houses, he finally has an opportunity to build his masterpiece--"his last shot at leaving a footprint on the dying planet." Assuming, that is, he can stick to his resolution to keep the demands of his needy family at bay. Naturally, that's when his phone rings. His niece, Cecily--the...

Half-Iraqi, half-American Sirine is a cook at Nadia's Cafe, which draws the neighborhood's Arab students, expatriates, and exiles. All are hungry for 'real true Arab food' and connection to their homes. One is Hanif Al Eyad, a new hire in the Near Eastern Studies Department at the university who fled Iraq as a young man. Sirine and Han fall in love over food: a baklava they make together, delicate lamb dishes, hummus glistening with olive oil. Populated...

A middle-aged anthropology professor contemplating his future becomes romantically involved with a woman released from jail after shooting her husband, the pastor of a snake-handling church.