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Hilary Mantel, author of Learning to Talk: Stories

Absorbing and evocative, these drawn-from-life stories by Hilary Mantel begin in the 1950s in an insular northern village “scoured by bitter winds and rough gossip tongues.” For the young narrator, the only way to survive is to get up, get on, get out. In “King Billy Is a Gentleman,” the child must come to terms with the loss of a father and the puzzle of a fading Irish heritage. “Curved Is the Line of Beauty" is a story of friendship, faith and a near-disaster in a scrap-yard. The title story sees our narrator ironing out her northern vowels with the help of an ex-actress with one lung and a Manchester accent. In “Third Floor Rising," she watches, amazed, as her mother carves out a stylish new identity.

Week of September 25, 2023

Paperback releases for the week of September 25th include the two books in Cormac McCarthy's masterful The Passenger series --- THE PASSENGER, the story of a salvage diver, haunted by loss, afraid of the watery deep, pursued for a conspiracy beyond his understanding, and longing for a death he cannot reconcile with God, and STELLA MARIS, an intimate portrait of grief and longing, as a young woman in a psychiatric facility seeks to understand her own existence; LEARNING TO TALK, a dazzling collection of loosely autobiographical stories from Hilary Mantel that locates the transforming moments of a haunted childhood; DON’T FEAR THE REAPER, the riveting sequel to Stephen Graham Jones' MY HEART IS A CHAINSAW, in which Jade Daniels returns to the rural lake town of Proofrock the same day as convicted Indigenous serial killer Dark Mill South escapes into town to complete his revenge killings; and THE CHRISTMAS SPIRIT, a delightful novel from the queen of holiday stories, Debbie Macomber, about two lifelong friends who decide to trade places the week before Christmas and end up finding love along the way.