Letters Literature

2019 Dublin. When Jessie Daly loses her job, her flat and her relationship, she travels home to Ireland's west coast and helps an old friend researching what happened in the area during the 1840s Famine. They are drawn into the remarkable story of a brave young mother called Bridget Moloney, and Jessie becomes determined to find out what happened to Bridget and her daughter, Norah.

Though she can't afford the coal to heat her drafty Mayfair mansion, Felicity Langley still clings to her dream of marrying a duke - one she's had since her very first curtsy. After all, she's been promised to the very lofty duke of Hollindrake for the last four years. Now all she has to do is meet him. But what Felicity doesn't realize is that she has met her duke - he's the altogether too handsome man who Felicity has just mistaken...for her new footman!

Twenty-seven-year-old Emily doesn’t have a lot going well in her life right now. She dreams of a creative career but works as a receptionist in an auto shop. She longs for big city life but lives in a small town on Prince Edward Island. She craves a close group of friends but is stuck with irritating, car-obsessed coworkers. What Emily does have is a 300+ day streak on the New York Times Wordle. But one day, with only one guess left and no clue what the answer is, she’s forced to turn to one of her irritating, car-obsessed coworkers, John, for help.

Meet Maggie, Eva, and Lisa, founders of The Scarlet Letter Society. Named as such due to their various infidelities, both physical and emotional, the SLS is their refusal to be shamed like Hester Prynne in Nathaniel Hawthorne's classic tale of forbidden longing. Maggie is twice divorced and juggling three lovers - one of whom is her first ex-husband. Eva is trapped in a loveless marriage and has turned to her young intern and a seductive French chef for satisfaction.

While researching why Freud failed to win a Nobel Prize at the Nobel Archives in Sweden, a psychiatrist makes an unusual discovery. Among the piles of papers in the "Crackpot" file are letters addressed to the executor of Alfred Nobel's will, written by several notable Nobel laureates - including Rudyard Kipling and Marie Curie - each offering an explanation of why and how Stonehenge was constructed. Diligent research uncovers that Alfred Nobel added a secret codicil to his will, a prize for the Nobel laureate who solves the mystery of Stonehenge.

Lee Smith delivers the heartwarming tale of three generations of women who record their lives in Christmas letters to the family.

You are so young. You may wonder what an old man like me could teach? I wonder as well. I certainly don't claim to know all the answers. I'm barely figuring out the questions...Life has a strange way of repeating itself and I want my experience to help you...My hope is that you'll consider my words and remember my heart.

Young Maris has been summoned to his mother's bedside as she nears the end of her life; she feels she must tell him her version of their family history, the story of his early life, and the ways in which he changed the lives of others. Maris was born with what some might call a blessing and others might deem a curse: His very large, very special ears enable him to hear the secrets of the dead as well as the memories that haunt his Latvian hometown.

A TIMELESS ROMANCE ANTHOLOGY: LOVE LETTER COLLECTION: Listeners will love this collection of six novellas - three contemporary and three historical - all with one thing in common: Romance.

Easily one of the most towering figures of Bengali literature of the 20th century, Buddhadeva Bose was as prolific as he was versatile. A poet of renown, Bose was also an accomplished playwright, novelist, essayist and short-story writer. His prose is marked by invention, refreshing modernity and an easy yet deep engagement with timeless themes: love, the nature of memory, and the complexity of the relationship between man and woman - qualities which keep Bose’s work enduringly relevant.

Best-selling novelist, memoirist, and biographer Edmund White displays his sharp wit and boundless erudition in 37 portraits of the writers, artists, and cultural icons who have captured his curiosity and imagination for the last 20 years. White is as compelling as he is unpretentious in these stories of his encounters with some of the most provocative writers, artists, and personalities of our time.

In 1959, Hollywood ingenue Mercy Welles seems to have the world at her feet. Far removed from her Nebraska roots, she has crafted herself into a glamorous Oscar-nominated actress engaged to an up-and-coming director… Until she shockingly vanishes without a trace, just as her career is taking off. Almost sixty years later, Kit O’Neill, a junior television producer in Manhattan, is packing up her recently deceased grandmother’s attic, only to discover a long-lost box of souvenirs that reveal that the grandmother who raised her and her sister was, in fact, the mysterious Mercy Welles.

Veronica and Gabe met when they were children at ballet class, and by the time they’d reached their teens, they knew they’d be dancing together forever. Only Gabe’s mother had other ideas.... Twenty-something years later, Veronica no longer dances and life hasn’t turned out how she thought it would. She’s divorced with a needy ex-husband, monosyllabic teenage sons, a sister who fancies herself as a long in the tooth ‘it girl’ and a mother who’s recently moved into a care home.

Shirley Jackson is one of the most important American authors of the last hundred years and among our greatest chroniclers of the female experience. This extraordinary compilation of personal correspondence has all the hallmarks of Jackson’s beloved fiction: flashes of the uncanny in the domestic, sparks of horror in the quotidian, and the veins of humor that run through good times and bad.

The Complete Brontë Sisters and Jane Austen Collection brings together four of the most influential female authors of the 19th century. The collection includes Austen's 7 novels, selected short fiction, and a selection of her letters; alongside all 7 of the Brontë sisters' completed novels, as-well as a selection of the poetry which all three sisters published.

Two girls emerge from a convent in order to marry and assume their places in post-Revolutionary French society. Louise is ruled by passion, Renée by pragmatism, and the intimate details of their trials and triumphs are revealed through their correspondence. Letters of Two Brides follows two strong women across the years as they navigate love, friendship, faith, and the conflicting expectations for women in society.

As World War Two rages, MI5 agent Sarah Gillespie is faced with her toughest challenge yet: handling Adeline Vernier, a mysterious double agent from Paris. Adeline’s coded letters could help the Allies defeat the Germans – but, in return, she demands that her boyfriend is rescued from Nazi-occupied France. Adeline is not above threatening to double-cross MI5 to get what she wants, leaving Sarah fearful for the millions of lives at stake.

"Momma set me on the jukebox." So begins the personal story of Denise (Sweetie) Wooten, set between a post-civil rights era New York City and a growing but stale rural Alabama. We are thrust in the midst of a family longing for normalcy, but instead struggling with illness and all that comes with it - denial, anger, misunderstanding, and love. As cultures clash, we see the family through a child's eyes and walk with her as she makes sense of war fought far away, but with effects close to home, and a tragedy that changes her life forever.

Jake Mishkin's seemingly innocent job as an intellectual property lawyer has put him at the center of a deadly conspiracy and a chase to find a priceless treasure involving William Shakespeare. As he awaits a killer (or killers) unknown, Jake writes an account of the events that led to this deadly endgame, a frantic chase that began when a fire in an antiquarian bookstore revealed the hiding place of letters containing a shocking secret, concealed for 400 years.

Immerse yourself in the captivating world of Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter." Set in Puritan New England, this timeless classic delves into themes of sin, guilt, and redemption. The story follows Hester Prynne, a woman branded with a scarlet letter "A" for adultery, as she navigates the complexities of societal judgment and personal redemption. Hawthorne's exquisite prose and rich symbolism bring the characters to life, while exploring the human condition with profound insight.