The Historia pontificalis of John of Salisbury

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Rebecca Perry

**A curator is absorbed in the medieval world of a reluctant monarch in this searing debut about what becomes lost over time and what devotion can reanimate.** A curator spends her days reconstructing the past—selecting and carefully arranging furniture, fabrics, and replica food to bring medieval rooms back to life. Whether it’s a feast with spilling platters or a table for two littered with small hints of intimacy, it must appear as if the people have just left the room. After accepting a commission to work on the private quarters of a medieval palace, the curator becomes absorbed in the story of a king almost forgotten by history. As she studies the traces he left behind, the boundary between her own life and his begins to blur. The King is an unlikely ruler: a man with little appetite for power, hurried to the throne after the sudden deaths of his brothers. At court, doubts about his judgment are whispered from chamber to chamber. Then an unthinkable possibility emerges among the gossip: maybe someone else will take the crown. A riveting debut from an award-winning poet, *May We Feed the King* is a story seen through shadows and old slips of paper, heard through cracked doors and murmured breaths. It asks how history takes shape—and how the stories that survive can distort the lives they claim to preserve. Laced with desire and longing, Perry’s novel is a searing meditation on the small details and large gaps that make up a life.

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Albert Camus

Lyrical and critical is a celebrated work by Albert Camus (Nobel Laureate), recognized for masterclass storytelling and lasting literary resonance.

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Ben Okri

Incidents at the shrine is a celebrated work by Ben Okri (Booker Prize Winner), recognized for masterclass storytelling and lasting literary resonance.

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Anne Tyler

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOKBALTIMORE WOMAN DISAPPEARS DURING FAMILY VACATION, declares the headline. Forty-year-old Delia Grinstead is last seen strolling down the Delaware shore, wearing nothing more than a bathing suit and carrying a beach tote with five hundred dollars tucked inside. To her husband and three almost-grown children, she has vanished without trace or reason. But for Delia, who feels like a tiny gnat buzzing around her family's edges, "walking away from it all" is not a premeditated act, but an impulse that will lead her into a new, exciting, and unimagined life . . . . "TYLER DETAILS DELIA'S ADVENTURE WITH GREAT SKILL . . . As so often in her earlier fiction--Celestial Navigation, Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, The Accidental Tourist, and her nine other novels--[she] creates distinct characters caught in poignantly funny situations. . . .Tyler writes with a clarity that makes the commonplace seem fresh and the pathetic touching."--The New York Times"UTTERLY COMPELLING. . .WONDERFULLY SATISFYING. . .Ladder of Years is virtually flawless."--Chicago Tribune"A 'PAGE-TURNER' IN THE BEST SENSE . . . One wants to lightly caress the pages of the story because one cares for Ms. Tyler's touchingly flawed characters. . . . Both madcap and genteel, Anne Tyler knows as well as anyone that 'human beings lead many lives.' Casually, delightfully, Ladder of Years will tell you just how we humans manage this trick."--The Baltimore SunFrom the Trade Paperback edition.