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Elena Ferrante, author of The Lying Life of Adults

Giovanna’s pretty face is changing, turning ugly, at least so her father thinks. Giovanna, he says, looks more like her Aunt Vittoria every day. But can it be true? Is she really changing? Is she turning into her Aunt Vittoria, a woman she hardly knows but whom her mother and father clearly despise? Surely there is a mirror somewhere in which she can see herself as she truly is. Giovanna is searching for her reflection in two kindred cities that fear and detest one another: Naples of the heights, which assumes a mask of refinement, and Naples of the depths, a place of excess and vulgarity. She moves from one to the other in search of the truth, but neither city seems to offer answers or escape.

Week of September 20, 2021

Paperback releases for the week of September 20th include THE LYING LIFE OF ADULTS, a powerful novel set in a divided Naples by Elena Ferrante, whose 14-year-old protagonist is searching for her reflection in two kindred cities that fear and detest one another; THE LAST DAYS OF JOHN LENNON by James Patterson, Casey Sherman and Dave Wedge, the thrilling true story of two men who changed history: one whose indelible songs enliven our world to this day, and the other who ended the beautiful music with five pulls of a trigger; NEXT TO LAST STAND, the 16th installment in Craig Johnson's series featuring Sheriff Walt Longmire, who is chasing down the whereabouts of one of the most viewed paintings in American history: Custer's Last Fight; and THE AWKWARD BLACK MAN, a masterful collection of short stories from Walter Mosley, who presents distinct characters as they struggle to move through the world --- heroes who are awkward, nerdy, self-defeating, self-involved and, on the whole, odd.