Animal husbandry

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Kevin Canty

Kevin Canty is a master of the short story whose work has been compared to that of Flannery O'Connor and Raymond Carver. In Where the Money Went, he surprises us with stories about love and the desertion of love, all written from a man's point of view. Rarely is a man so revealing.A narrator struggles with his abiding loyalty to his ex-wife, even when he finds love with another woman. A newly divorced man learns more than he wants to know about his friends' long-term marriages. In these nine stories, which incisively touch on the complex nature of love, we find men as fathers, as husbands, and as lovers, trying their best in a world that stubbornly refuses to make sense. Canty, whose writing has been praised as "smart, gritty, unsentimental" (New York Times), "lovely and unforgiving" (Boston Globe), and "enchanting and painful" (USA Today), powerfully conveys both the bitterness that can afflict romantic relationships, and the moments of humor and tenderness that cut through it.

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Laura Esquivel

Es este un hermoso relato ambientado en México, a principios del siglo XX, con posterioridad a la Revolución Mexicana: la historia de Júbilo, un hombre que nació con el don de la alegría y la capacidad de «escuchar» los verdaderos sentimientos de las personas no expresados en palabras... Desde pequeño, Júbilo se convierte en el intérprete entre su abuela, de origen maya, y su madre, de origen español. A caballo entre dos culturas, sirve de lazo entre esas dos mujeres irreconciliables. Júbilo ha descubierto el poder de las palabras, tan grande como el deseo, y ello determinará que elija convertirse en telegrafista para poder seguir traduciendo e interpretando a su antojo... A través del relato de su hija Lluvia, que lo acompaña en sus últimos días, postrado en el lecho y privado de la palabra, descubrimos la historia de Júbilo, quien conoció como nadie la discordancia entre el deseo y la palabra. Todavía deberá aprender una última lección: después de todo, el amor sigue viajando a la velocidad del deseo.

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Anita Brookner

I have come to believe that there can be no adequate preparation for the sadness that comes at the end, the sheer regret that one's life is finished, that one's failures remain indelible and one's successes illusory.' Elizabeth and Betsy are old school friends. Born in 1948 and unready for the sixties, they had high hopes of the lives they would lead, even though their circumstances were so different. When they meet again in their thirties, Elizabeth, married to the safe, older Digby is relieving the boredom of a cosy but childless marriage with an affair. Betsy seems to have found real romance in Paris. Are their lives taking off, or are they just making more of the wrong choices without even realising it?

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Valerie Frankel

It's uncanny! Within six months of breaking up with her, Peg Silver's ex-lovers always meet and marry the women of their dreams. Even worse than being the eternal bridesmaid, she's the last girlfriend, the one who awakens in a guy the knowledge of what he's always wanted in a relationship ... and it's never with Peg. Obviously, a major lifestyle change is seriously called for, which is why the distraught interior landscape designer says good-bye to Manhattan and late-night lattes with pal Nina, and hello to a farmhouse on ten acres in tiny, backwater Manshire, Vermont, hoping to meet the ultimate, all-organic country man (without too much facial hair) to keep her warm in those frosty New England winters.Instead, Peg finds herself at Inward Bound -- a proactive adult-education retreat for the hapless and hopelessly lovelorn -- to try to lift her dreaded "girlfriend curse." A steamy (and expressly forbidden) dalliance with gorgeous woman-eater Ray probably isn't going to help cure her. But some romantic insight could arise from her attraction to Linus, Inward Bound's sexy, scruffy, smart and still-single founder. Perhaps there is a secret to be unearthed in the crunchy Green Mountains, one that will magically transform Peg Silver from the Perpetual Also Ran to the Big Winner in love.