Showing results by author "Tobias Wolff" in All Categories

This book essentially launched the memoir craze that has been going strong ever since. The story is pretty grim: teen-aged Wolff moves with his divorced mother from Florida to Utah to Washington State to escape her violent boyfriend. When she remarries, Wolff finds himself in a bitter battle of wills with his abusive stepfather, a contest in which the two prove to be more evenly matched than might have been supposed.

Harry Crews grew up as the son of a sharecropper in Georgia at a time when “the rest of the country was just beginning to feel the real hurt of the Great Depression but it had been living in Bacon County for years.” Yet what he conveys in this moving, brutal autobiography of his first six years of life is an elegiac sense of community and roots from a rural South that had rarely been represented in this way.

Anders is an angry, cynical man. A book critic known for his scathing reviews, he finds any excuse to dismiss, belittle, or insult. This afternoon is no more agitating than the next. Angers finds himself in a long line at the bank, waiting to reach a teller. Even after two men - wearing masks and carrying guns - take control of the building, Anders is unfazed. It's this behavior that lands him with a pistol against his stomach and a man screamingin his face. And when the bank robber, indignant over Anders' behavior, shoots the book critic in the head, his mind floats through the memories of his life, settling on one particular event....

Meticulous, funny, eccentric - Mary has always been mindful of the complex role she plays as a professor of history. Her lectures are carefully written out beforehand; her departmental loyalties ambiguous. She is so careful, in fact, that she began to see herself as flat, dull, and lifeless. The closing of Brandon College, the institution she'd spent more than fifteen years at, changes everything. Forced to find another position, Mary finds herself at an experimental college in rainy Oregon.

Determined to fit in at his New England prep school, the narrator has learned to mimic the bearing and manners of his adoptive tribe while concealing as much as possible about himself. His final year, however, unravels everything he’s achieved and steers his destiny in directions no one could have predicted.

Mr. Givens’ obituary is nothing remarkable, hardly something to remember at all. He led a quiet life, served in the Army, was married to the same woman for 42 years, and worked at the same job practically his whole life. He wasn’t a baseball player or a movie star, he was the furthest thing from a celebrity. In fact, the only thing noteworthy about his obituary is what happens after it runs in the newspaper, when he shows up in the office of the Metro editor wondering who decided to pronounce him dead.

Dr. Booth drives his son, Owen, to Fort Steele Academy, where he hopes his son will thrive in a structured, disciplined environment that mirrors Booth's own upbringing. But after he drops Owen off at his new school, he's filled with a deep sense of doubt - about his decision to send his son away, about his childhood - and finds himself lost in more ways than one.

Sergeant Morse is a risk-taker, playing chicken with the potential exposure of his sexuality. Julianne is looking for her brother, Specialist Hart, not knowing he’s shipped out to Iraq. In a surprising moment of tenderness, Sergeant Morse offers to help her, but whether due to fear of exposure or stubbornness, they might both be beyond rescue.

Two drugged-out couples contemplate life and morality in "Leviathan", a classic short story by the masterful Tobias Wolff. For Helen's 30th birthday party, her husband decides tothrow her a small party. Armed with booze and three grams of cocaine, the four partyers - Helen, her husband, and another couple - spend the night and the next morning in a drug-induced stupor. As their talk turns to past misdeeds and shameful acts, the couples begin to wonder if it's not the bad decisions in life that bring happiness and meaning.

This third volume in the series draws together for the first time many of Dubus' previously uncollected stories, including work from the mid-1960s and the late 1990s. The earliest story appearing here in audiobook form for the first time is "The Cross Country Runner". The final story - the Western-themed "Sisters" - is the last piece of fiction Dubus was working on when he died suddenly in 1999 at just 63 years old.

A collection of poignant, romantic and funny tales performed by Academy Award -winning actor William Hurt. This collection includes a bonus track of an exclusive interview with William Hurt. Hurt's readings are thoughtful, tender, romantic, and resonant. A treasure.

Ann's friends envy her. None of their husbands even lift a finger to help with the household chores. Ann's husband is different, though. Then a simple hypothetical conversation while they wash and dry the dishes causes Ann to see her husband in a different light - and causes him to rethink the way two people can know each other.

A son sits at his mother's deathbed, hesitant to leave her side. He leafs through one of her old photo albums, remembering her abusive, estranged father. When a visit to a funeral home turns into a conversation with a beautiful, mysterious woman, he develops a deeper - and perhaps darker - understanding of his relationship with his mother.

Three friends are leaving the suburbs of Spokane on a hunting trip. Kenny is the prankster, harsh and mean. Frank is laid-back and full of idealism. Tub is overweight, sensitive, and the brunt of everyone's jokes. Searching for tracks in the snow, the trio has little luck until they spot a set of deer prints heading into a nearby farm. Kenny, desperate for a token of their difficult journey, insists that they ask the farmer's permission to hunt on his land.

Wolff here returns with fresh revelations - about biding one's time, or experiencing first love, or burying one's mother - that come to a variety of characters in circumstances at once everyday and extraordinary. A retired Marine enrolls in college while her son trains for Iraq. A lawyer takes a difficult deposition. An American in Rome indulges the Gypsy who's picked his pocket.

In this short story from Our Story Begins, three friends confront their relationships to one another as they work on plans to build their very own airplane. Clark’s parents are rich, supplying the boys with all they need to follow their pursuits, making films and building catapults. Meanwhile, Freddy’s family is dealing with the loss of his older brother, and Freddy’s friends are having a hard time knowing how to act around him anymore. The boys all have their troubles, but maybe their airplane can help them escape....

Miller is unlucky. That's why he's in a foxhole with the rest of Bravo Company. That's why his dad is gone and his mother remarried. That's why his teeth are falling out. Then, when the first sergeant tells Miller his mother has passed away, Miller thinks he's finally gotten lucky. Surely it's another Miller's mother, and now he can get away from the battalion for a couple days thanks to the Army's error. But Miller knows the future rarely has happiness in store.

With his marriage on the rocks, a father takes his son skiing for the weekend. After insisting on staying just a bit longer - despite a growing blizzard - the boy's father finds they're snowed in at the resort, the road blockaded by state troopers. To what lengths will he go to keep his marriage intact?

Maureen is an English teacher, and she’s had a long day. All she wants is a relaxing night out with friends, a few beers, and maybe the chance to forget the troubles of her past: The gambling ex-husband and the daughter who’d thrown her life away sleeping with married men. But her night—and maybe her life—is thrown off track when she leaves the bar and a man approaches her in the parking lot as she unlocks her car.

A classic tale of brotherly love and rivalry from short story master Tobias Wolff. Pete has always been successful. Happily married with two daughters, he lives a comfortable life in Santa Cruz. Pete is a practical, hardworking man and he enjoys life's monetary pleasures. His younger brother, Donald, is a gaunt, troubled man. Unmarried and without children, Donald earns what little money he has by occasionally painting houses. He's a religious man, unlike Pete, and has spent several years as a member of various Christian groups.