{"title":"Hero Picks","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe six covers shown in the homepage hero. Rotated monthly. Not a sales ranking.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"tis-a-memoir","title":"'tis: A Memoir","description":"Frank McCourt's glorious childhood memoir, Angela's Ashes, has been loved and celebrated by readers everywhere for its spirit, its wit and its profound humanity. A tale of redemption, in which storytelling itself is the source of salvation, it won the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. Rarely has a book so swiftly found its place on the literary landscape.And now we have 'Tis, the story of Frank's American journey from impoverished immigrant to brilliant teacher and raconteur. Frank lands in New York at age nineteen, in the company of a priest he meets on the boat. He gets a job at the Biltmore Hotel, where he immediately encounters the vivid hierarchies of this 'classless country,' and then is drafted into the army and is sent to Germany to train dogs and type reports. It is Frank's incomparable voice -- his uncanny humor and his astonishing ear for dialogue -- that renders these experiences spellbinding.When Frank returns to America in 1953, he works on the docks, always resisting what everyone tells him, that men and women who have dreamed and toiled for years to get to America should 'stick to their own kind' once they arrive. Somehow, Frank knows that he should be getting an education, and though he left school at fourteen, he talks his way into New York University. There, he falls in love with the quintessential Yankee, long-legged and blonde, and tries to live his dream. But it is not until he starts to teach -- and to write -- that Frank finds his place in the world. The same vulnerable but invincible spirit that captured the hearts of readers in Angela's Ashes comes of age.As Malcolm Jones said in his Newsweek review of Angela's Ashes, 'It is only the best storyteller who can so beguile his readers that he leaves them wanting more when he is done...and McCourt proves himself one of the very best.' Frank McCourt's 'Tis is one of the most eagerly awaited books of our time, and it is a masterpiece.","brand":"Frank McCourt","offers":[{"title":"Fine","offer_id":44273483186275,"sku":"191482-fine","price":6.0,"currency_code":"KWD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0676\/0320\/2147\/files\/view_archive_0d1e17d6-b9c6-40dc-9fd0-850c754b8a7d.jpg?v=1782095478"},{"product_id":"personal-history","title":"Personal History","description":"Winner of the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for BiographyAn extraordinarily frank, honest, and generous book by one of America's most famous and admired women, Personal History is, as its title suggests, a book composed of both personal memoir and history.It is the story of Graham's parents: the multimillionaire father who left private business and government service to buy and restore the down-and-out Washington Post, and the formidable, self-absorbed mother who was more interested in her political and charity work, and her passionate friendships with men like Thomas Mann and Adlai Stevenson, than in her children.It is the story of how The Washington Post struggled to succeed -- a fascinating and instructive business history as told from the inside (the paper has been run by Graham herself, her father, her husband, and now her son).It is the story of Phil Graham -- Kay's brilliant, charismatic husband (he clerked for two Supreme Court justices) -- whose plunge into manic-depression, betrayal, and eventual suicide is movingly and charitably recounted. Best of all, it is the story of Kay Graham herself. She was brought up in a family of great wealth, yet she learned and understood nothing about money. She is half-Jewish, yet -- incredibly -- remained unaware of it for many years.She describes herself as having been naive and awkward, yet intelligent and energetic. She married a man she worshipped, and he fascinated and educated her, and then, in his illness, turned from her and abused her. This destruction of her confidence and happiness is a drama in itself, followed by the even more intense drama of her new life as the head of a great newspaper and a great company, a famous (and even feared) woman in her own right. Hers is a life that came into its own with a vengeance -- a success story on every level.Graham's book is populated with a cast of fascinating characters, from fifty years of presidents (and their wives), to Steichen, Brancusi, Felix Frankfurter, Warren Buffett (her great advisor and protector), Robert McNamara, George Schultz (her regular tennis partner), and, of course, the great names from the Post: Woodward, Bernstein, and Graham's editorpartner, Ben Bradlee. She writes of them, and of the most dramatic moments of her stewardship of the Post (including the Pentagon Papers, Watergate, and the pressmen's strike), with acuity, humor, and good judgment. Her book is about learning by doing, about growing and growing up, about Washington, and about a woman liberated by both circumstance and her own great strengths.","brand":"Katharine Graham","offers":[{"title":"Very good","offer_id":44273498652771,"sku":"381184-very-good","price":6.75,"currency_code":"KWD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Fine","offer_id":44273498685539,"sku":"381184-fine","price":5.75,"currency_code":"KWD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0676\/0320\/2147\/files\/view_archive_ceb302ae-83ca-4ccd-bc49-c38630a514ac.jpg?v=1782095488"},{"product_id":"mortals","title":"Mortals","description":"The greatly anticipated new novel by Norman Rush—whose first novel,Mating, won the National Book Award and was everywhere acclaimed—is his richest work yet. It is at once a political adventure, a social comedy, and a passionate triangle. It is set in the 1990s in Botswana—the African country Rush has indelibly made his own fictional territory. Mortalschronicles the misadventures of three ex-pat Americans: Ray Finch, a contract CIA agent, operating undercover as an English instructor in a private school, who is setting out on perhaps his most difficult assignment; his beautiful but slightly foolish and disaffected wife, Iris, with whom he is obsessively in love; and Davis Morel, an iconoclastic black holistic physician, who is on a personal mission to “lift the yoke of Christian belief from Africa.” The passions of these three entangle them with a local populist leader, Samuel Kerekang, whose purposes are grotesquely misconstrued by the CIA, fixated as the agency is on the astonishing collapse of world socialism and the simultaneous, paradoxical triumph of radical black nationalism in South Africa, Botswana’s neighbor. And when a small but violent insurrection erupts in the wild northern part of the country, inspired by Kerekang but stoked by the erotic and political intrigues of the American trio—the outcome is explosive and often explosively funny. Along the way, there are many pleasures. Letters from Ray’s brilliantly hostile brother and Iris’s woebegone sister provide a running commentary on contemporary life in America. Africa and Africans are powerfully evoked, and the expatriate scene is cheerfully skewered. Through lives lived ardently in an unforgiving land,Mortalsexamines with wit and insight the dilemmas of power, religion, rebellion, and contending versions of liberation and love. It is a study of a marriage over time, and a man’s struggle to find his way when his private and public worlds are shifting. It is Norman Rush’s most commanding work.","brand":"Norman Rush","offers":[{"title":"Fine","offer_id":44273720819811,"sku":"1237999-fine","price":5.5,"currency_code":"KWD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0676\/0320\/2147\/files\/view_archive_84268dd8-8b06-41f9-b517-04853485d0d9.jpg?v=1782095633"},{"product_id":"the-corrections","title":"The Corrections","description":"Winner of the National Book Award for FictionNominated for the National Book Critics Circle AwardAn American Library Association Notable Book Jonathan Franzen's third novel, 'The Corrections,' is a great work of art and a grandly entertaining overture to our new century: a bold, comic, tragic, deeply moving family drama that stretches from the Midwest at mid-century to Wall Street and Eastern Europe in the age of greed and globalism. Franzen brings an old-time America of freight trains and civic duty, of Cub Scouts and Christmas cookies and sexual inhibitions, into brilliant collision with the modern absurdities of brain science, home surveillance, hands-off parenting, do-it-yourself mental healthcare, and the anti-gravity New Economy. With 'The Corrections,' Franzen emerges as one of our premier interpreters of American society and the American soul. Enid Lambert is terribly, terribly anxious. Although she would never admit it to her neighbors or her three grown children, her husband, Alfred, is losing his grip on reality. Maybe it's the medication that Alfred takes for his Parkinson's disease, or maybe it's his negative attitude, but he spends his days brooding in the basement and committing shadowy, unspeakable acts. More and more often, he doesn't seem to understand a word Enid says. Trouble is also brewing in the lives of Enid's children. Her older son, Gary, a banker in Philadelphia, has turned cruel and materialistic and is trying to force his parents out of their old house and into a tiny apartment. The middle child, Chip, has suddenly and for no good reason quit his exciting job as a professor at D------ College and moved to New York City, where he seems to be pursuing a 'transgressive' lifestyle and writing some sort of screenplay. Meanwhile the baby of the family, Denise, has escaped her disastrous marriage only to pour her youth and beauty down the drain of an affair with a married man--or so Gary hints. Enid, who loves to have fun, can still look forward to a final family Christmas and to the ten-day Nordic Pleasurelines Luxury Fall Color Cruise that she and Alfred are about to embark on. But even these few remaining joys are threatened by her husband's growing confusion and unsteadiness. As Alfred enters his final decline, the Lamberts must face the failures, secrets, and long-buried hurts that haunt them as a family if they are to make the corrections that each desperately needs. Winner of the National Book Award National Book Critics Circle Award NomineePulitzer Prize Nominee'New York Times Book Review 'Editors' ChoiceAmerican Library Association Notable Book 'The Corrections 'is a grandly entertaining novel for the new century--a comic, tragic masterpiece about a family breaking down in an age of easy fixes. After almost fifty years as a wife and mother, Enid Lambert is ready to have some fun. Unfortunately, her husband, Alfred, is losing his sanity to Parkinson's disease, and their children have long since flown the family nest to the catastrophes of their own lives. The oldest, Gary, a once-stable portfolio manager and family man, is trying to convince his wife and himself, despite clear signs to the contrary, that he is not clinically depressed. The middle child, Chip, has lost his seemingly secure academic job and is failing spectacularly at his new line of work. And Denise, the youngest, has escaped a disastrous marriage only to pour her youth and beauty down the drain of an affair with a married man--or so her mother fears. Desperate for some pleasure to look forward to, Enid has set her heart on an elusive goal: bringing her family together for one last Christmas at home. Stretching from the Midwest at midcentury to the Wall Street and Eastern Europe of today, 'The Corrections 'brings an old-fashioned world of civic virtue and sexual inhibitions into violent collision with the era of home surveillance, hands-off parenting, do-it-yourself mental health care, and globalized greed. Richly realistic, darkly","brand":"Jonathan Franzen","offers":[{"title":"Very good","offer_id":44274457641059,"sku":"579974-very-good","price":7.0,"currency_code":"KWD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0676\/0320\/2147\/files\/view_archive_4ce191aa-7731-4e46-8570-1181213468a2.jpg?v=1782096396"},{"product_id":"walk-two-moons","title":"Walk Two Moons","description":"'How about a story? Spin us a yarn.' Instantly, Phoebe Winterbottom came to mind. 'I could tell you an extensively strange story,' I warned. 'Oh, good!' Gram said. 'Delicious!' And that is how I happened to tell them about Phoebe, her disappearing mother, and the lunatic. As Sal entertains her grandparents with Phoebe's outrageous story, her own story begins to unfold--the story of a thirteen-year-old girl whose only wish is to be reunited with her missing mother. In her own award-winning style, Sharon Creech intricately weaves together two tales, one funny, one bittersweet, to create a heartwarming, compelling, and utterly moving story of love, loss, and the complexity of human emotion. Winner of the 1995 Newbery Medal A 1995 ALA Notable Children's Book School Library Journal Best Book of 1994 Winner of a 1994 Bulletin Blue Ribbon A Notable Children's Trade Book in the Language Arts (NCTE) Winner of the 1997 Heartland Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature Winner, 1995 Newbery Medal Notable Children's Books of 1995 (ALA) 1995 Notable Trade Books in the Language Arts (NCTE) Children's Book Award for Longer Novels (Great Britain's Federation of Children's Books Groups) Outstanding Books of 1994 for Middle School-Aged Teens (V) Best Books 1994 (SLJ) Bulletin Blue Ribbon Books 1994 (C)","brand":"Sharon Creech (Winner of The 1995 Newbery Medal)","offers":[{"title":"Good","offer_id":44274466029667,"sku":"496672-good","price":2.75,"currency_code":"KWD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0676\/0320\/2147\/files\/view_archive_4e2b0676-0778-47c6-a8c3-6388ca954ca1.jpg?v=1782096398"},{"product_id":"the-woman-of-the-pharisees-719629","title":"The Woman Of The Pharisees","description":"\u003cp\u003eBook jacket\/back: Francois Mauriac--who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1952--is famous for his subtle character portraits of the French rural classes and for depicting their struggles, aspirations and traditions. The Woman of the Pharisees--one of Mauriac's most accomplished novels--is a penetrating evocation of the moral and religious values of a Bordeaux community. In Brigitte, we see how the ideals of love and companionship are stifled in the presence of a self-righteous woman whose austere religious principals lead her to interfere--disasterously--in the lives of others. One by one the unwitting victims fall prey to the bleakness of her 'perfection.' A conscientious schoolteacher, a saintly priest, her husband and stepdaughter and an innocent schoolboy are all confronted with tragedy and upheaval. But the author's extraordinary gift for psychological insight goes on to show how redeeeming features inevitably surface from disaster. The unfolding drama is seen through the discerning eye of a young Louis--Brigitte's stepson--whose point of view is skillfully blended into the mature and understanding adult he later becomes.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Mauriac","offers":[{"title":"Fine","offer_id":44287551111267,"sku":"719629-fine","price":5.5,"currency_code":"KWD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0676\/0320\/2147\/files\/view_archive_7e13b227-674b-48a7-8e7a-ff955f78d34f.jpg?v=1782269468"}],"url":"https:\/\/qasralthaqafa.com\/collections\/hero-picks.oembed","provider":"Qasr Al-Thaqafa","version":"1.0","type":"link"}