Lauren Groff

Lauren Groff's acclaimed debut novel The Monsters of Templeton was short-listed for the Orange Prize. Her second novel, Arcadia opens in the late 1960s with a group of young idealists forming a commune in western New York State. Into this group is born Bit, who grows into a quiet, distant man. Over the course of 50 years, Bit witnesses the utopia crumble and the world change in unimaginable ways.

Lauren Groff presents nine stories of astonishing insight and variety, each revealing a resonant drama within the life of a twentieth-century American woman.In "Sir Fleeting," a Midwestern farm girl on her honeymoon in Argentina falls into lifelong lust for a French playboy. In "Blythe," an attorney who has become a stay-at-home mother takes a night class in poetry and meets another full-time mother, one whose charismatic brilliance changes everything....

"Haunting, vivid, and wonderfully subversive, Hale's stories typically concern women recognizable to all of us--sometimes fragile, possibly wicked, deceptively ordinary, navigating their way uncertainly through life" --

"The first one-volume collection of all of Lorrie Moore's short stories, with an introduction by Lauren Groff"-- This career-spanning collection of Moore's work showcases her talent for leavening tragedy with humor, for blending sorrow with subversive wit. The stories are peopled by a variety of lost souls grappling with pain or disappointment. -- adapted from jacket

An essential collection of classic stories that established Flannery O'Connor's reputation as an American master of fiction—now with a new introduction by New York Times bestselling author Lauren Groff In 1955, with the title story and others in this critical edition, Flannery O'Connor firmly laid claim to her place as one of the most original and provocative writers of her generation. Steeped in a Southern Gothic tradition...

"An anthology of original reflections on Henry David Thoreau's life and work"-- "From twenty-seven of today's leading writers, an anthology of original pieces on the author of Walden. Features essays by Jennifer Finney Boylan, Kristen Case, George Howe Colt, Gerald Early, Paul Elie, Will Eno, Adam Gopnik, Lauren Groff, Celeste Headlee, Pico Iyer, Alan Lightman, James Marcus, Megan Marshall, Michelle Nijhuis, Zoë Pollak, Jordan Salama, Tatiana Schlossberg,...

Featuring guest editor contributions by the author of "Less," the latest edition of the respected literary annual collects twenty top-selected short stories from the previous year.