Ridgway Public Library

A portrait of one day in the life of Tommy Wilhelm, a man on the brink of despair. A novel about one day in the life of a middle-aged New Yorker struggling to make sense of his failures, atone for his sins, and understand how to truly "live in the moment."

"At 52, Karl Preston lives an ideal American life with his wife and 24-year-old daughter, in an affluent North Carolina suburb. At the request of his father, Karl and his family travel to Florida for a weekend visit that generates a roller-coaster ride of emotions that buttoned-up Karl is not fully prepared to deal with." "Frank and Annike, Karl's elderly parents, use this reunion to announce their planned move to a retirement community and their...

Malik Solanka, irascible doll-maker and retired historian of ideas, suffers the pain of wanting without knowing exactly what it is he wants. Escaping with his family to New York City and its crowded streets, Malik seeks to extinguish himself and forget the life he left behind in London.

Saturday is a novel set within a single day in February 2003. Henry Perowne is a contented man a successful neurosurgeon, happily married to a newspaper lawyer, and enjoying good relations with his children, who are young adults. Henry wakes to the relative comfort of his home on this, his day off. He is almost as comfortable here as he is in the operating room. Outside the hospital, the world is not so easy or predictable. There is an impending...

Anatoly Sukhanov showed talent early, and his daring, brilliant art captured the hand of beautiful Nina Malinin, daughter of a famed Russian artist. But then he opted for prestige and comfort, hiding his controversial paintings and becoming critic rather than creator as editor ofArt of the World, Russia's leading art magazine, which condemns whole schools of Western art. Suddenly in 1985, at the age of 56, Sukhanov's life unravels and he loses everything...

Stella Hardesty, our salty, unlikely heroine, runs a sewing shop in rural Missouri. She also has a side business helping battered women with their abusive boyfriends and husbands. When Chrissy Shaw askes Stella for help, it seems like a straightforward case, until Chrissy's no-good husband disappears with her two-year-old son. Now Stella finds herself in a battle against a more formidable enemy as she risks her own life to recover the boy.

The Astral is a huge, rose-colored apartment building in the rapidly gentrifying Brooklyn neighborhood of Greenpoint. For decades, it has been the happy home (or so he thought) of the poet Harry Quick and his wife, Luz, who raised two children in their rambling top-floor apartment. However, the aging Astral's glory is beginning to fade- and as the building crumbles around him, a series of events forces Harry to face the reality of his own fractured...

Contains two of Sinclair Lewis's most famous novels and includes a chronology of the author's life and career, and notes on the texts.

"On his 59th birthday, Tyson Parks--a famous, but struggling, horror writer--receives an antique desk from his partner, Sarah, in the hopes it will rekindle his creative juices. Perhaps inspire him to write another best-selling novel and prove his best years aren't behind him. A continent away, a mysterious woman makes inquiries with her sources around the world, seeking the whereabouts of a certain artifact her family has been hunting for centuries....

Arthur Pfefferkorn, is a middle-aged college professor with long dead literary aspirations. When his oldest friend, successful thriller writer William de Vallee, is lost at sea, Pfefferkorn is torn between envy and grief, for de Vallee not only outshone Pfefferkorn professionally, but married the woman Pfefferkorn loved. He struggles with his failed ambitions while reflecting on his late friend's successes and marriage. He decides to take the best-selling...