Literary fiction about everything left unsaid

We all know the headiness and excitement of the early days of love. But what comes after? In Edinburgh, a couple, Rabih and Kirsten, fall in love. They get married, they have children--but no long-term relationship is as simple as 2happily ever after. 3The Course of Love is a novel that explores what happens after the birth of love, what it takes to maintain love, and what happens to our original ideals under the pressures of an average existence. You experience, along with Rabih and Kirsten, the first flush of infatuation, the effortlessness of falling into romantic love, and the course of life thereafter. Interwoven with their story and its challenges is an overlay of philosophy--an annotation and a guide to what we are reading. This is a Romantic novel in the true sense, one interested in exploring how love can survive and thrive in the long term. The result is a sensory experience--fictional, philosophical, psychological--that urges us to identify deeply with these characters, and to reflect on his and her own experiences in love.

Discover an American masterpiece. This unassuming story about the life of a quiet English professor has earned the admiration of readers all over the globe. The critic Morris Dickstein has said that John Williams's Stoner "is something much rarer than a great novel - it is a perfect novel," and in the last decade this austere and deeply moving tale of a Midwestern college professor has been embraced by readers all over the world. Here, to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Stoner , NYRB Classics offers a special hardback edition of the book that also includes a previously unpublished correspondence between John Williams and his agent about its writing and publication.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • In this “profound, resplendent novel”* from Pulitzer Prize–winning author Elizabeth Strout, a chance incident sparks a powerful realization in a beloved teacher’s life. LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE • ONE OF BARACK OBAMA’S FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE SUMMER “Strout’s capacious empathy and rigorous attention to the nuances of human behavior and psychology are as evident as ever.”— The Boston Globe “Artie Dam is someone you may never be able to forget.”— Financial Times* Artie Dam is living a double life. He spends his days teaching history to eleventh graders, expanding their young minds, correcting their casual cruelties, and lending a kind word to those who need it most. He goes to holiday parties with his wife of three decades, makes small talk with neighbors, and, on weekends, takes his sailboat out on the beautiful Massachusetts Bay. He is, by all appearances, present and alive. But inside, Artie is plagued by feelings of isolation. He looks out at a world gone mad—at himself and the people around him—and turns a question over and over in his mind: How is it that we know so little about one another, even those closest to us? And then, one day, Artie learns that life has been keeping a secret from him, one that threatens to upend his entire world. Once he learns it, he is forced to chart a new course, to reconsider the relationships he holds most dear—and to make peace with the mysteries at the heart of our existence. Elizabeth Strout, as we have come to expect, delivers a moving exploration of the human condition—one that brims with compassion for each and every one of her indelible characters. With exquisite prose and profound insight, The Things We Never Say takes one man’s fears and loneliness and makes them universal. And in the same breath, captures the abiding love that sustains and holds us all.