New Releases by Francine Prose

From the acclaimed, award-winning author of Reading Like a Writer and Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris, 1932 comes an utterly original novel inspired by the strange friendship between Charles Dickens and Hans Christian Andersen and set during the summer when Dickens''s family life exploded. In the summer of 1857, when British newspapers warned of an approaching comet about to destroy the earth, an unusual-looking stranger arrived at Charles Dickens''s home, Gad''s Hill, in the countryside outside London. Dickens had met Hans Christian Andersen at a dinner party, a decade before, and, in a moment of desperation, had invited him to visit. The visit did not go well. The eccentric Danish author of classic fairy tales, who barely spoke English, outstayed his welcome and alienated the Dickens household, which included nine children. Even the oblivious, obsessively self-conscious Andersen sensed the increasing tension between Dickens and his unhappy wife, Catherine, but was slow to understand—or to believe—that Dickens had fallen in love with a young actress appearing in his new play. For Andersen, those five weeks were a series of social mistakes and embarrassments but ultimately a lesson in how life''s most humbling experiences can be transformed into art. Five Weeks in the Country, a work of imaginative fiction inspired by actual events, is Francine Prose at her dazzling best.

“In this remarkable memoir, the qualities that have long distinguished Francine Prose’s fiction and criticism—uncompromising intelligence, a gratifying aversion to sentiment, the citrus bite of irony—give rigor and, finally, an unexpected poignancy to an emotional, artistic, and political coming-of-age tale set in the 1970s—the decade, as she memorably puts it, when American youth realized that the changes that seemed possible in the ’60s weren’t going to happen. A fascinating and ultimately wrenching book.”—Daniel Mendelsohn, author of The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million The first memoir from critically acclaimed, bestselling author Francine Prose, about the close relationship she developed with activist Anthony Russo, one of the men who leaked the Pentagon Papers--and the year when our country changed. During her twenties, Francine Prose lived in San Francisco, where she began an intense and strange relationship with Tony Russo, who had been indicted and tried for working with Daniel Ellsberg to leak the Pentagon papers. The narrative is framed around the nights she spent with Russo driving manically around San Francisco, listening to his stories--and the disturbing and dramatic end of that relationship in New York. What happens to them mirrors the events and preoccupations of that historical moment: the Vietnam war, drugs, women''s liberation, the Patty Hearst kidnapping. At once heartfelt and ironic, funny and sad, personal and political, 1974 provides an insightful look at how Francine Prose became a writer and artist during a time when the country, too, was shaping its identity.

A feminist reinterpretation of the myths surrounding Cleopatra casts new light on the Egyptian queen and her legacy "A lucid and persuasive reinterpretation. Readers won''t see Cleopatra the same way again."--Publishers Weekly "Where Prose really sparkles: her critiques of the cultural depictions of Cleopatra."--Allison Arieff, San Francisco Chronicle The siren passionately in love with Mark Antony, the seductress who allegedly rolled out of a carpet she had herself smuggled in to see Caesar, Cleopatra is a figure shrouded in myth. Beyond the legends immortalized by Plutarch, Shakespeare, George Bernard Shaw, and others, there are no journals or letters written by Cleopatra herself. All we have to tell her story are words written by others. What has it meant for our understanding of Cleopatra to have had her story told by writers who had a political agenda, authors who distrusted her motives, and historians who believed she was a liar? Francine Prose delves into ancient Greek and Roman literary sources, as well as modern representations of Cleopatra in art, theater, and film, to challenge narratives driven by orientalism and misogyny and offer a new interpretation of Cleopatra''s history through the lens of our current era.

An essay by Xavier F. Salomon, Frick Curator, paired with a contribution by author Francine Prose bring to life one of Titian''s most personal and revealing portraits. Author of lives of saints, scurrilous verses, comedies, tragedies, and innumerable letters, Pietro Aretino (1492-1556) attained considerable wealth and influence, in part through literary flattery and blackmail. Little is known of his early years, but by 1527 he had settled permanently in Venice. Among Aretino''s friends and patrons were some of the most prominent figures of his time, several of whom gave him gold chains such as the one he wears in this portrait. He was on intimate terms with Titian, who painted at least three portraits of him. Here the artist conveys his friend''s intellectual power through the keen, forceful head and his worldliness through the solid, weighty mass of the richly robed figure.

Cecily Brown is a British-born, New York-based artist who rose to prominence in the late 1990s. Originally influenced by Cubism and Abstract Expressionism, Brown has over the years developed her unique voice, which investigates the sensual qualities of oil paint and portraiture through a satirizing and celebratory process inspired both by abstraction and realism. Gentle and yet forceful, Brown''s exuberant brushwork, rich palette, intense energy, and black humor have redefined some of painting''s historical canons.

Lonely Planet: The world''s leading travel guide publisher A collection of great travel writing by authors from around the globe, including original stories set in Scotland, Thailand, Malaysia, Moldova, Tanzania, Austria and beyond, edited by long-term Lonely Planet collaborator Don George. The 35 impassioned stories included in this collection - of fortune tellers, tribal baboon hunters, a friendly Japanese family, and other notable characters - span a worldwide spectrum of themes, styles and settings, but all show how travel in its unexpected turns tests and teaches us, making us aware that we are resilient, that we are not alone, and that there is so much love and connection to be had if we open ourselves up. This collection affirms that if we follow the compass of the heart, we will always find our way. Whether you read the book on the road or in an armchair at home, these tales are sure to entertain, amuse and inform you, and resonate long after the book is finished. ''As you travel through these pages, may your mind be widened, your spirit enlivened, and your own path illuminated by these worldly word-journeys.'' ---Don George With sparkling contributions from some of the most acclaimed names in contemporary fiction and travel writing plus some new voices from around the world, including: Ann Patchett, Francine Prose, TC Boyle, Karen Joy Fowler, Pico Iyer, Torre DeRoche, Blane Bachelor, Rebecca Dinerstein, Jan Morris, Elizabeth George, Jane Hamilton, Alexander McCall Smith, Keija Parssinen, Mridu Khullar Relph, Yulia Denisyuk, Emily Koch, Carissa Kasper, Jessica Silber, Candace Rose Rardon, Marilyn Abildskov, Shannon Leone Fowler, Robin Cherry, Robert Twigger, Porochista Khakpour, Natalie Baszile, Suzy Joinson, Anthony Sattin, LH McMillin, Bridget Crocker, Maggie Downs, Bishwanath Ghosh, Jeff Greenwald, James Dorsey and Tahir Shah. About Lonely Planet: Started in 1973, Lonely Planet has become the world''s leading travel guide publisher with guidebooks to every destination on the planet, gift and lifestyle books and stationery, as well as an award-winning website, magazines, a suite of mobile and digital travel products, and a dedicated traveller community. Lonely Planet''s mission is to enable curious travellers to experience the world and to truly get to the heart of the places they find themselves in. TripAdvisor Travelers'' Choice Awards 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015 winner in Favorite Travel Guide category ''Lonely Planet guides are, quite simply, like no other.'' - New York Times ''Lonely Planet. It''s on everyone''s bookshelves; it''s in every traveller''s hands. It''s on mobile phones. It''s on the Internet. It''s everywhere, and it''s telling entire generations of people how to travel the world.'' - Fairfax Media (Australia) Important Notice: The digital edition of this book may not contain all of the images found in the physical edition.

A short story by Francine Prose from the collection Reader, I Married Him: Stories inspired by Jane Eyre.

George Eliot’s beloved classic novel—hailed by Virginia Woolf as “masterful”—follows the life, loves, foibles, and politics of the residents of a fictional English town set amid the social unrest of the Industrial Revolution. This Harper Perennial Deluxe Edition includes an introduction by award-winning author Francine Prose. Dorothea Brooke married Edward Casaubon—a clergyman and scholar some years her senior—naively hoping their union would be a true meeting of the minds. Trapped in a lonely marriage to a tyrannical man, she finds companionship with Edward’s cousin, but her overtures risk her spotless reputation and jeopardize her future. Young doctor Tertius Lydgate comes to Middlemarch full of progressive ideas, eager to volunteer his skill at the local hospital. Through his connections there he meets the mayor’s beautiful daughter, Rosamond Vincy, and marries her, only to face financial ruin at the hands of her materialism and overwhelming vanity. Rosamond’s brother, Fred, is destined for the Church to improve his family’s class standing, but his childhood sweetheart, Mary Garth, refuses to marry him unless he pursues a more suitable career. Forced by fate into uncertain financial circumstances, Fred must question his choices and desires if he hopes to earn Mary’s respect. God-fearing and esteemed, Nicholas Bulstrode is a good man and trustworthy banker—or so it appears until an old enemy comes to town, intent on revealing Bulstrode’s shady past dealings. Terrified of being exposed as a hypocrite, he takes matters into his own hands, each desperate act spiraling him further into disgrace and corruption. A masterwork of fiction, Middlemarch traces these four lives in a plot that illuminates the social fabric of mid-nineteenth-century England. Looming above the landscape of Victorian literature, Eliot’s beloved novel explores the perennial struggle between individual and society, integrity and temptation, and is as timely today as when it was first published.

Terry Winters'' prints explore an enormous range of themes, from botany and biology to math and information technology. He has worked in nearly every mode of printmaking, including etching, screen-printing, lithography, and wood engraving. Frequently organized in serial groupings, Winters'' prints display free floating cellular structures or clusters of spirals, knots, grids, and networks. His forcefully made works are rich in ambiguity and allusion. This book features fifty beautiful reproductions, accompanied by insightful texts and comparative paintings and drawings. The complete catalog of Winters'' prints made between 1999 and 2014 is also included here, along with an essay by novelist and critic Francine Prose. AUTHOR: Michael Semff is Director of the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, Munich. Elizabeth Finch is the Lunder Curator of American Art at the Colby College Museum of Art in Waterville, Maine. 80 illustrations

A Haitian émigré''s exposure to shallow suburbanites is "social satire at its slyest and best" from the New York Times–bestselling author ( Kirkus Reviews). When the heartbroken Simone flees her native Haiti, her best option to start a new life is a quick paper marriage to a Brooklyn cab driver and a job as an underpaid caregiver to two spoiled young children in the small community of Hudson Landing, New York. But her new boss is nothing like what she''s been led to expect. The self-absorbed amateur sculptor Rosemary Porter and her morose, eccentric children George and Maisie—deserted by their philandering husband and father—rattle aimlessly around their crumbling suburban mansion. The people of Hudson Landing seem welcoming at first, but as Simone settles into this new home, her sense of unease grows. Rosemary''s sarcastic best friend, Shelly, seems as suspicious of her as her shallow boyfriend, Kenny, a children''s hair salon owner who appears eager to befriend the new au pair. A neighbor known only as "The Count" strings dead animals from trees for no reason anyone can understand. As the local community roils with secrets and attempts to outdo each other with self-importance, Simone begins to wonder just where on earth she has fled to—and if it''s any better than the violence and betrayal she left behind. As always, National Book Award finalist Francine Prose "has a wickedly sharp ear for pretentious American idiom, and no telling detail escapes her observation" as Simone struggles to make sense of these odd people and this strange, new world ( The New York Times Book Review).

From the "wonderfully quirky imagination" of the New York Times–bestselling author: A tabloid reporter is surprised to find magic in a mundane world ( The New York Times). Vera Pearl is a staff writer for This Week, a supermarket tabloid which trades in the bizarre and the absurd—though rarely, if ever, the true. No one is better than Vera at imagining these weird, wild stories, because more than anything, she wants them to be real. During one particularly slow week, Vera takes a photograph snapped by a colleague showing two children selling lemonade outside their Brooklyn home and drafts up a scoop to fit the snap, the story of two enterprising children who have discovered—and are profiting off of—the literal Fountain of Youth. By astonishing coincidence—or perhaps by magic—the details she concocts about the children (except for the properties of the tap water) turn out to be true, and hundreds of miracle-seekers descend upon this modern Lourdes-in-Flatbush. The resulting lawsuit sends this master of hoaxes into a very real tailspin: she is fired, her estranged husband flies in from Los Angeles to whisk away their precocious young daughter, and Vera takes off for Arizona to attend a meeting of the Cryptobiological Society, hoping for evidence of their furry quarry, Bigfoot. Just one glance, and Vera''s longing to finally transcend the quotidian may come true . . .

An "irresistibly readable" pair of novellas skewering Americans abroad—by the New York Times–bestselling author and National Book Award finalist ( The New York Times Book Review). "In a style that is bold, witty, richly detailed, and suffused with a wry subtlety," Francine Prose offers penetrating portraits of Americans in Europe who have brought all their baggage—ego, ambition, sexual desire—with them ( Elle). Guided Tours of Hell When the insecure (and rightfully so) playwright Landau travels from New York to Prague to read at the first annual Kafka conference, he''s certain this is his chance to prove himself—and his work. But he quickly finds himself upstaged by Jiri Krakauer, a charismatic Holocaust survivor whose claim to fame is a long-ago death-camp love affair with Kafka''s sister. On a group tour to the camp-turned-tourist-attraction, Landau sets out to prove that Krakauer is lying—with unexpected results. Three Pigs in Five Days Ambitious young journalist Nina has been stranded in Paris by her editor and sometimes boyfriend, Leo. When he finally shows up, playfully suggesting a romantic tour of the catacombs, prisons, and shadows of the City of Light, the bloom begins to come off the rose for the infatuated Nina—who must ask herself how much of herself she is willing to sacrifice for love.

In her entertaining and edifying New York Times bestseller, acclaimed author Francine Prose invites you to sit by her side and take a guided tour of the tools and tricks of the masters to discover why their work has endured. Written with passion, humor and wisdom, Reading Like a Writer will inspire readers to return to literature with a fresh eye and an eager heart – to take pleasure in the long and magnificent sentences of Philip Roth and the breathtaking paragraphs of Isaac Babel; to look to John le Carré for a lesson in how to advance plot through dialogue and to Flannery O’Connor for the cunning use of the telling detail; to be inspired by Emily Brontë’s structural nuance and Charles Dickens’s deceptively simple narrative techniques. Most importantly, Prose cautions readers to slow down and pay attention to words, the raw material out of which all literature is crafted, and reminds us that good writing comes out of good reading.

Though mocked by the rest of the villagers, poor Schmuel the shoemaker turns out to be a very special person.

"Francine Prose has a knack for getting to the heart of human nature. . . . We are allowed to enter the moral dilemmas of fascinating characters whose emotional lives are strung out by the same human frailties, secrets and insecurities we all share." — USA Today One spring afternoon, Vincent Nolan, a young neo-Nazi walks into the office of a human rights foundation headed by Meyer Maslow, a charismatic Holocaust survivor. Vincent announces that he wants to make a radical change. But what is Maslow to make of this rough-looking stranger with Waffen SS tattoos who says that his mission is to save guys like him from becoming guys like him? As Vincent gradually turns into the sort of person who might actually be able to do that, he also begins to transform everyone around him, including Maslow himself. Masterfully plotted, darkly comic, A Changed Man poses essential questions about human nature, morality, and the capacity for change, illuminating the everyday transactions, both political and personal, in our lives.

All loved, and were loved by, their artists, and inspired them with an intensity of emotion akin to Eros. In a brilliant, wry, and provocative book, National Book Award finalist Francine Prose explores the complex relationship between the artist and his muse. In so doing, she illuminates with great sensitivity and intelligence the elusive emotional wellsprings of the creative process.

During a recent stint in Rome (on a Rome Prize Fellowship), photographer Tim Davis became drawn to the peculiar status of ancient ruins. "You are standing in a field in Italy, looking at a pile of rocks. You''ve seen rocks and these are rocks. But someone else--a friend, a guidebook, a scholar--sees a temple . . ." Fascinated with the degree of meaning making that we bring to bear upon such minimal visual cues, Davis tested this perceptual shift on suburban ruins--what he calls "a soon-to-be ancient past"--and found that it was possible to make pictures that "look like archaeology, but might just be the side of the road." The photographs in The New Antiquity trigger in the viewer that wonderful cognitive bafflement of which Davis is a virtuoso: a kind of "seeing as" that allows us to completely reconceive what is actually quite ordinary (albeit beautifully photographed) everyday imagery. The New Antiquity proves that the suburban landscape is uniform and global not only in its pristine props, but also in its decay. And as Davis notes, "The Imperial Romans did the same, shipping marble from Tunis to Turkey. This New Antiquity doesn''t come from a centralized authority, but spreads virulently through all fertile capital markets. And its rise and ruin occur quickly . . ."

In this brilliant, wry, and provocative book, National Book Award finalist Francine Prose explores the complex relationships between the artist and his muse. In so doing, she illuminates with great sensitivity and intelligence the elusive emotional wellsprings of the creative process. All nine women loved, and were loved by, their artists, and inspired them with an intensity of emotion akin to Eros: Hesther Thrale and Samuel Johnson; Alice Liddell and Lewis Carroll; Elizabeth Siddal and Dante Gabriel Rossetti; Lou Andreas-Salome and Friedrich Nietzsche; Rainer Maria Rilke and Sigmund Freud; Gala Dali and Salvador Dalip; Lee Miller and Man Ray; Charis Weston and Edward Weston; Suzanne Farrell and George Balanchine; and Yoko Ono and John Lennon. Illus.

Un après-midi à Manhattan, Vincent, un jeune néonazi, entre dans les locaux d''une fondation de défense des droits de l''homme fondée par Meyer Maslow, un survivant de l''Holocauste. Il annonce qu''après avoir lu les livres de Maslow, il veut changer radicalement, lui qui est couvert de tatouages nazis proclame qu''il a pour mission de sauver des types comme lui pour les empêcher de devenir des types comme lui. En changeant progressivement pour atteindre ses objectifs, Vincent change aussi ceux qui l''entourent : Maslow qui a peur que l''héroïsme ne devienne un travail de bureau ; Bonnie, chargée de lever des fonds, divorcée et mère seule, dévouée à la croisade de Maslow ; et Danny, l''adolescent qui ouvre les yeux sur le monde. L''humour noir illumine et met à nu ce qui demeure invisible à notre culture consommatrice, droguée et manipulée par les médias. Un homme changé pose des questions essentielles : qu''est-ce qui fait la valeur d''une vie ? Est-il possible de changer ? Qu''est-ce que signifie être humain ? L''effrayante intelligence, l''esprit et l''humanité de ce roman font de Francine Prose un auteur majeur.

À bientôt cinquante ans, Ted Swenson, professeur d''université, décide qu''il est temps de profiter des privilèges de sa condition. Arrive dans sa classe Angela, jeune femme tatouée et percée, qui fait preuve d''un véritable don d''écrivain. Ted se voit déjà dans le rôle du Pygmalion. Mais l''élève Angela n''est-elle pas plus manipulatrice que son maître?

The Glorious Ones travel the length and breadth of seventeenth-century Italy, playing commedia dell''arte in the streets and palaces with equal vigor. Founded by the ingenious madman Flamino Scala, the small company of players endures kidnappings and passionate affairs, cabals, riots, disgrace—all manner of triumph and hardship. Pantalone the miser, sunny Armanda the dwarf, gossip-loving Columbina, and evil-minded Brighella view their myriad shared adventures through markedly different eyes. Yet not one of them is prepared for the strange twisting of the road brought about by the mysterious arrival of Isabella Andreini, who has come to direct their wayward troupe.

Contains poetry, fiction, and essays that either address the abiding influence of fairy tales on contemporary literature and culture, or are themselves contemporary fairy tales in prose or verse.

Francine Prose''s life of Caravaggio evokes the genius of this great artist through a brilliant reading of his paintings. Caravaggio defied the aesthetic conventions of his time; his use of ordinary people, realistically portrayed—street boys, prostitutes, the poor, the aged—was a profound and revolutionary innovation that left its mark on generations of artists. His insistence on painting from nature, on rendering the emotional truth of experience, whether religious or secular, makes him an artist who speaks across the centuries to our own time. Born in 1571 near Milan, Michelangelo Merisi (da Caravaggio) moved to Rome when he was twenty-one years old. He became a brilliant and successful artist, protected by the influential Cardinal del Monte and other patrons. But he was also a man of the streets who couldn''t seem to free himself from its brawls and vendettas. In 1606 he fled Rome, apparently after killing another man in a dispute. He spent his last years in exile, in Naples, Malta, and Sicily, at once celebrated for his art and tormented by his enemies. Through it all, he produced masterpieces of astonishing complexity and power. Eventually he received a pardon from the Pope, only to die, in mysterious circumstances, on the way back to Rome in 1610. Francine Prose presents the brief but tumultuous life of one of the greatest of all painters with passion and acute sensitivity.

In this new fable about the power of imagination, the people of Leipzig have marveled at the amazing tales told by Leopold, and for generations believed his stories were true. That is, until a scientist and explorer arrives and accuses Leopold of being a liar. Full color.