Best Selling Books by Sue Miller

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK In the fall of 1988, Sue Miller found herself caring for her father, James Nichols, once a truly vital man, as he succumbed to Alzheimer’s disease. Beginning an intensely personal journey, she recalls the bitter irony of watching this church historian wrestle with his increasingly befuddled notion of time and meaning. She details the struggles with doctors, her own choices, and the attempt to find a caring response to a disease whose special cruelty is to diminish the humanity of those it strikes. In luminous prose, Sue Miller has fashioned a compassionate inventory of two lives, a memoir destined to offer comfort to all sons and daughters struggling to make peace with their fathers and with themselves.

A Masterful, Engrossing Novel About The Life Of A Large Family That Is Deeply Bounded By The Stranger In Their Midst -- An Autistic Child The whole world could not have broken the spirit and strength of the Eberhardt family of 1948. Lainey is a wonderful if slightly eccentric mother. David is a good father, sometimes sarcastic, always cool-tempered. Two wonderful children round out the perfect picture. Then the next child arrives -- and life is never the same again. Over the next forty years, the Eberhardt family struggles to survive a flood tide of upheaval and heartbreak, love and betrayal, passion and pain...hoping they can someday heal their hearts.

“Riveting . . . While I Was Gone [celebrates] what is impulsive in human nature.” –The New York Times “Miller weaves her themes of secrecy, betrayal, and forgiveness into a narrative that shines.” –Time Jo Becker has every reason to be content. She has three dynamic daughters, a loving marriage, and a rewarding career. But she feels a sense of unease. Then an old housemate reappears, sending Jo back to a distant past when she lived in a communal house in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Drawn deeper into her memories of that fateful summer in 1968, Jo begins to obsess about the person she once was. As she is pulled farther from her present life, her husband, and her world, Jo struggles against becoming enveloped by her past and its dark secret. “[While I Was Gone] swoops gracefully between the past and the present, between a woman’s complex feelings about her husband and her equally complex fantasies–and fears–about another man. . . . [Miller writes] well about the trials of faith.” –The New York Times Book Review “Quietly gripping . . . Jo shines steadily as the flawed and thoroughly modern heroine. As in her 1986 novel, The Good Mother, Miller shows how impulses can fracture the family.” –USA Today “Marvelous . . . poignant . . . powerful.” –Seattle Times/Post Intelligencer

The moving story of a mother and son that touches the deepest concerns about love, art, family, and life Lily Maynard is proud, chilly, difficult, and has become a famous writer at age seventy-two. Now, stricken with Parkinson''s disease and staying with her architect son Alan, Lily must cope with her fading powers as well as with disturbing memories of the events that estranged her from her children and ended her marriage. For Alan, her visit raises old questions about his relationship with her, about the choices he has made in his own life, and about the nature of love, disappointment, and grief. Profound and moving, The Distinguished Guest reveals a family trying to understand the meaning of its life together, while confronting inevitable loss and the vision of an immeasurably altered future.

For nearly two decades, since the publication of her iconic first novel, The Good Mother, Sue Miller has distinguished herself as one of our most elegant and widely celebrated chroniclers of family life, with a singular gift for laying bare the interior lives of her characters. In each of her novels, Miller has written with exquisite precision about the experience of grace in daily life–the sudden, epiphanic recognition of the extraordinary amid the ordinary–as well as the sharp and unexpected motions of the human heart away from it, toward an unruly netherworld of upheaval and desire. But never before have Miller’s powers been keener or more transfixing than they are in Lost in the Forest, a novel set in the vineyards of Northern California that tells the story of a young girl who, in the wake of a tragic accident, seeks solace in a damaging love affair with a much older man. Eva, a divorced and happily remarried mother of three, runs a small bookstore in a town north of San Francisco. When her second husband, John, is killed in a car accident, her family’s fragile peace is once again overtaken by loss. Emily, the eldest, must grapple with newfound independence and responsibility. Theo, the youngest, can only begin to fathom his father’s death. But for Daisy, the middle child, John’s absence opens up a world of bewilderment, exposing her at the onset of adolescence to the chaos and instability that hover just beyond the safety of parental love. In her sorrow, Daisy embarks on a harrowing sexual odyssey, a journey that will cast her even farther out onto the harsh promontory of adulthood and lost hope. With astonishing sensuality and immediacy, Lost in the Forest moves through the most intimate realms of domestic life, from grief and sex to adolescence and marriage. It is a stunning, kaleidoscopic evocation of a family in crisis, written with delicacy and masterful care. For her lifelong fans and those just discovering Sue Miller for the first time, here is a rich and gorgeously layered tale of a family breaking apart and coming back together again: Sue Miller at her inimitable best.

This "New York Times" Notable Book by the bestselling author of "While I Was Gone" is a haunting novel that exposes the nerves that lie hidden in marriages, families, and the lives of two women.

Lottie is relieved to have escaped to her mother''s house for the summer because her second marriage, barely begun, is in trouble. Also at home is Cameron, Lottie''s brother, who has been in love with their neighbour Elizabeth since high school. Elizabeth is married with three children but now, finally, Elizabeth and Cameron embark on a passionate affair. But as Lottie, Cameron and Elizabeth are reunited, a senseless tragedy befalls them.

NATIONAL BESTELLER • The New York Times bestselling author of Monogomy brings us a "tasteful, elegant, sensuous" (The Boston Globe) novel about marriage and forgiveness. Meri is newly married, pregnant, and standing on the cusp of her life as a wife and mother, recognizing with some terror the gap between reality and expectation. Delia—wife of the two-term liberal senator Tom Naughton—is Meri''s new neighbor in the adjacent New England town house. Tom''s chronic infidelity has been an open secret in Washington circles, but despite the complexity of their relationship, the bond between them remains strong. Soon Delia and Meri find themselves leading strangely parallel lives, as they both reckon with the contours and mysteries of marriage: one refined and abraded by years of complicated intimacy, the other barely begun. With precision and a rich vitality, Sue Miller—beloved and bestselling author of While I Was Gone—brings us a highly charged, superlative novel.

That''s what the play was about, she was thinking abruptly. The wish to imagine what life could be, how it could change, if you were unencumbered. Did everyone who was married do this from time to time, imagine an unencumbered life? Three years after the death of her younger brother Gus, Leslie still carries around with her the thought of what might have been- if Gus hadn''t got on that plane on September 11th, if her husband understood the nature of her grief more, if she had made different choices in her life. As she sits down to watch a play written by Gus''s former girlfriend Billy, she can''t help but wonder if Billy too has been unable to let go of his memory. At the time Billy had seemed so stunned, so utterly at a loss for what to do. But now, watching the stage before her, Leslie soon realizes how disquietingly autobiographical The Lake Shore Limited is - and how little she really knows Billy. Meanwhile, the lead actor, Rafe, is struggling to cope with seeing his once strong, fiery wife succumb to the devastating effects of motor neuron disease. And then there is Sam, Leslie''s divorced friend, who finds in the play inescapable echoes of his troubled life. Four characters, brought together by The Lake Shore Limited, all carry with them the weight of guilt, regret and longing that accumulates as the years go by. The Lake Shore Limited is a deeply felt, deeply human exploration of the intricate workings of relationships- the things we try to hold onto, and the things we desperately want to let go of.

"A tour de force. Sue Miller goes straight to the dark heart of the matter of modern sexual morality." —Russell Banks Sue Miller’s critically acclaimed New York Times bestseller about a woman torn between motherhood and sexual freedom, sacrifice and responsibility After an amicable divorces, piano teacher Anna Dunlap has built an independent life in New England for herself and her four-year-old daughter, Molly. It''s all Anna thinks she needs. Until she meets Leo Cutter, an artist who makes her feel desired, unabashedly sexual, and filled with certitude and passion for the first time. All it takes is a single unguarded moment for Anna''s perfect world to implode, Leveling shocking charges against Leo, Anna''s ex-husband crashes back into Anna''s life and takes Molly with him. When it thrusts Anna into a public and ugly custody battle, she is forced to defend her choices, to confront the damage done by the choices of others, and to prove herself, against seemingly unpardonable odds, a good mother.

Fleeing the end of an affair, and troubled by the feeling that she belongs nowhere after working in East Africa for fifteen years, Frankie Rowley comes home to the small New Hampshire town of Pomeroy and the farmhouse where her family has always summered. On her first night back, a house up the road burns to the ground. Is it an accident? Over the weeks that follow, as Frankie comes to recognise her father''s slow failing and her mother''s desperation, and she tentatively gets to know the new owner of the local newspaper, another house burns, and then another. These frightening events open the deep social fault lines in the town and raise questions about how and where one ought to live, and what it really means to lead a fulfilling life.

A New York Times Notable Book • NPR Best Book of the Year • People magazine Top Ten Books of the Year • BookPage Best Book of the Year • Good Housekeeping Best Book of the Year “A sensual and perceptive novel. . . . With humor and humanity, Miller resists the simple scorned-wife story and instead crafts a revelatory tale of the complexities—and the absurdities—of love, infidelity, and grief.” —O, the Oprah Magazine A brilliantly insightful novel, engrossing and haunting, about marriage, love, family, happiness and sorrow, from New York Times bestselling author Sue Miller. Graham and Annie have been married for nearly thirty years. Their seemingly effortless devotion has long been the envy of their circle of friends and acquaintances. By all appearances, they are a golden couple. Graham is a bookseller, a big, gregarious man with large appetites—curious, eager to please, a lover of life, and the convivial host of frequent, lively parties at his and Annie’s comfortable house in Cambridge. Annie, more reserved and introspective, is a photographer. She is about to have her first gallery show after a six-year lull and is worried that the best years of her career may be behind her. They have two adult children; Lucas, Graham’s son with his first wife, Frieda, works in New York. Annie and Graham’s daughter, Sarah, lives in San Francisco. Though Frieda is an integral part of this far-flung, loving family, Annie feels confident in the knowledge that she is Graham’s last and greatest love. When Graham suddenly dies—this man whose enormous presence has seemed to dominate their lives together—Annie is lost. What is the point of going on, she wonders, without him? Then, while she is still mourning Graham intensely, she discovers a ruinous secret, one that will spiral her into darkness and force her to question whether she ever truly knew the man who loved her.

Isn''t parenting wonderful? Okay, maybe on sleepless nights, it doesn''t feel wonderful. But you have to agree that parenting can certainly be full of wonder. Also, it can leave you wondering some things you''ve never wondered before.Parenting Is Wonder-full is for those beginning their parenting journey (or beginning again for the second or third times). It has one simple goal: to let parents know they are not alone. In these pages, new parents will find themselves identifying with other parents who have shared similar moments while also being reminded of the things that will matter the most.This paperback book is a perfect gift for new parents, and a great companion piece to Baby D, the baby dedication resource from Orange.

Sue Miller''s stories from a chapter in the moral history of our time Like Sue Miller''s bestselling novels, this collection of short stories explores the treacherously shifting ground of erotic and family relationships with deftness and depth. The title story is about a young man who takes up successively with three daughters of the most fashionable family in town. In other stories, whose characters range from a young girl in the first blush of sexual curiosity to a stricken dowager whose seizures release a brutal and sometimes obscene candor, Sue Miller presents a compelling gallery of contemporary men and women with hungry hearts and dismayed consciences.

Improvising Sabor: Cuban Dance Music in New York begins in 1960s New York and examines in rich detail the playing styles and international influence of important figures in US Latin music. Such innovators as José Fajardo, Johnny Pacheco, George Castro, and Eddy Zervigón dazzled the Palladium ballroom and other Latin music venues in those crucible years. Author Sue Miller focuses on the Cuban flute style in light of its transformations in the US after the 1959 revolution and within the vibrant context of 1960s New York. While much about Latin jazz and salsa has been written, this book focuses on the relatively unexplored New York charangas that were performing during the chachachá and pachanga craze of the early sixties. Indeed, many accounts cut straight from the 1950s and the mambo to the bugalú’s development in the late 1960s with little mention of the chachachá and pachanga’s popularity in the mid-twentieth century. Improvising Sabor addresses not only this lost and ignored history, but contends with issues of race, class, and identity while evaluating differences in style between players from prerevolution Cuban charangas and those of 1960s New York. Through comprehensive explorations and transcriptions of numerous musical examples as well as interviews with and commentary from Latin musicians, Improvising Sabor highlights a specific sabor that is rooted in both Cuban dance music forms and the rich performance culture of Latin New York. The distinctive styles generated by these musicians sparked compelling points of departure and influence.

Richard Egües and José Fajardo are universally regarded as the leading exponents of charanga flute playing, an improvisatory style that crystallized in 1950s Cuba with the rise of the mambo and the chachachá. Despite the commercial success of their recordings with Orquesta Aragón and Fajardo y sus Estrellas and their influence not only on Cuban flute players but also on other Latin dance musicians, no in-depth analytical study of their flute solos exists. In Cuban Flute Style: Interpretation and Improvisation, Sue Miller—music historian, charanga flute player, and former student of Richard Egües—examines the early-twentieth-century decorative style of flute playing in the Cuban danzón and its links with the later soloistic style of the 1950s as exemplified by Fajardo and Egües. Transcriptions and analyses of recorded performances demonstrate the characteristic elements of the style as well as the styles of individual players. A combination of musicological analysis and ethnomusicological fieldwork reveals the polyrhythmic and melodic aspects of the Cuban flute style, with commentary from flutists Richard Egües, Joaquín Oliveros, Polo Tamayo, Eddy Zervigón, and other renowned players. Miller also covers techniques for flutists seeking to learn the style—including altissimo fingerings for the Boehm flute and fingerings for the five-key charanga flute—as well as guidance on articulation, phrasing, repertoire, practicing improvisation, and working with recordings. Cuban Flute Style will appeal to those working in the fields of Cuban music, improvisation, music analysis, ethnomusicology, performance and performance practice, popular music, and cultural theory.

Covering all the key themes, different theoretical views and approaches to studying childhood and early childhood, this book guides you through your course, telling you exactly what is expected of you throughout your studies. It will ensure you develop the skills you need to become successful, and key areas covered include: making the transition from personal experience of children, to studying childhood making the most of your lectures writing good assignments learning how to study independently developing your critical thinking drawing on the full range of student resources (people, services, research visits) getting a job in the early years sector. The new edition has been thoroughly updated and now contains: a new chapter on placements and visits detailed advice on how to avoid plagiarism full consideration of multi-agency working, throughout every chapter advice on career opportunities and further study. Designed to support students in their studies and beyond, this book is an essential purchase for anyone studying childhood or early childhood. SAGE Study Skills are essential study guides for students of all levels. From how to write great essays and succeeding at university, to writing your undergraduate dissertation and doing postgraduate research, SAGE Study Skills help you get the best from your time at university. Visit the SAGE Study Skills website for tips, quizzes and videos on study success!

An illustrated guide to grooming, fashion, and etiquette for women.

photographs by Gerald Cubitt Once part of an ancient supercontinent, New Zealand was isolated by the sea to form its present-day raft of islands stretching from the sub-tropical to the sub-Antarctic. This superbly illustrated book offers a tour of this diverse, wild "land of the long white cloud," capturing in text and over 400 full-color photographs New Zealand''s untamed areas and the wildlife that inhabits them. The journey begins in the rugged northern peninsula, with its rocky coastline and impressive stands of kauri forests, continues through the length and breadth of North and South Islands, and then leaves the mainland for the islands beyond. Much of New Zealand''s beauty is preserved in an extensive system of national parks, within which the natural diversity is almost endless. High peaks and meadows of alpine flowers give way to dense rainforest. Geysers and hot springs bubble and fume in the thermal regions. Long sleek beaches and quiet bays offer peace and seclusion. In this land are found creatures that exist nowhere else on earth: the shy kiwi that makes its home in the dense beech forests; the many rare birds that have a last refuge in the offshore islands; and the tuatara - a reptile that has existed since the age of dinosaurs and now clings precariously to survival. Wild New Zealand also offers a view of the country''s ancient origins, its cultural heritage, and the conservation efforts that seek to preserve the awesome beauty of this wondrous land. Gerald Cubitt is one of the world''s leading natural history photographers. and is particularly well known for his sensitive portrayals of the wildlife and wilderness areas of Africa and South-east Asia. Specially commissioned to provide the photographs for Wild New Zealand, he and his wife, Janet, travelled extensively through the islands, seeking to capture the astonishing variety of landscapes and the unique fauna and flora to be found there. He is deeply committed to providing an evocative record of the natural world that will encourage awareness of our environment''s increasing fragility.

Apoyados en 28 años de experiencia en el ministerio infantil de Willow Creek, los autores explican los cuatro fundamentos del ministerio: Misión, Visión, Valores y Estrategia. Incluye respuestas detalladas a las preguntas típicas de todo ministerio infantil: ¿Qué espera Jesús del ministerio infantil?, ¿Cómo evangelizar a los niños no salvos y discipular a los niños salvos al mismo tiempo?, ¿Cómo involucramos a los niños sin aburrirlos?, y ¿Cómo reclutar y dirigir mejor a los voluntarios?, entre otras.

A stunning collection of short stories from the bestselling author of The Good Mother, each exploring the shifting ground of erotic and family relationships today.