Jane Smiley

"Paras (short for Perestroika) is a spirited racehorse at a racetrack west of Paris. At dusk, one afternoon she pushes open the door of her stall - she's a curious filly - and, after traveling through the night, arrives by chance in the City of Light. She's dazzled, and often mystified, by the sights, sounds and smells around her, but she isn't afraid. Soon she meets an elegant dog, a German shorthair pointer named Frida, who knows how to get by without...

Family patriarch Walter Langdon has died, and his children have fanned out across the country. The narrative moves year by year from 1953 to 1986, encompassing Cold War blinkeredness, Sixties rebellion, and escalating wealth into the Eighties.

As her husband's obsessions with science take a darker turn on the eve of World War II, Margaret Mayfield is forced to consider the life she has so carefully constructed.

A satire on university life, describing the rackets and the intellectual dishonesty that goes on. The setting is the U of Moo where research into the destruction of rain forests is tailored to suit the corporation funding the project. By the author of A Thousand Acres.

From one of our most acclaimed novelists, a  David-and-Goliath biography for the digital age.

One night in the late 1930s, in a bar on the Illinois–Iowa border, John Vincent Atanasoff, a professor of physics at Iowa State University, after a frustrating day performing tedious mathematical calculations in his lab, hit on the idea that the binary number system and electronic switches, com­bined with an array of capacitors...

#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK
"A WISE, SPIRITED NOVEL . . . [IN WHICH] SMILEY PLUMBS THE WONDROUSLY
STRANGE WORLD OF HORSE RACING." —People
"ONE OF THE PREMIER NOVELISTS OF HER GENERATION, possessed of a mastery
of craft and an uncompromising vision that grow more powerful with each
book . . . Racing's eclectic mix of classes and personalities provides
Smiley with fertile soil . . . Expertly...

Elegantly repackaged and reissued to coincide with the release of Smiley's latest novel, "At Paradise Gate" is a brilliant novel that delves into the domestic drama of an ordinary American family. While Ike Robinson lays dying, his wife is forced to defend their marriage against an ill-considered, albeit loving invasion by their three middle-aged daughters.

"Before Jodie Rattler became a star, she was a girl growing up in St. Louis. One day in 1955, when she was just six years old, her Uncle Drew took her to the racetrack, where she got lucky - and that roll of two-dollar bills she won has never since left her side. Jodie thrived in the warmth of her extended family, and then - through a combination of hard work and serendipity - started a singing career, which catapulted her from St. Louis to New York...