Five Tuesdays in Winter

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A masterful, enchanting collection of stories illuminating the spectrum of human love—the platonic, the unrequited, the forbidden and the unconditional.” — People

The endearing, vulnerable characters in bestselling novelist Lily King’s ten clever, charming short stories are facing up to life’s dramas and demands — broken hearts, shattered illusions, troubled parents or children — with a grace that belies the damaging emotional fallout.”— Daily Mail (UK) King has portrayed effectively and compassionately with well-crafted prose, evocative descriptions, and spot-on dialogue.”— New York Journal of BooksIn "Creature," shortly after she and her mother move out of her father's house for the third time, Carol gets a summer babysitting job. She spends two weeks in one of her mother's customers Mrs. Pike's mansion on Widows' Point. For the first week, Carol feels comfortable and happy. The house is palatial and the Pike family is pleasant enough. Then, when the children's uncle, Hugh, comes to visit, everything changes. Carol feels attracted to him, and writes about him to her friend Gina. Hugh sneaks into her room one day and finds the letter. Not long later, he corners her in the bathroom and assaults her. Carol realizes that love and sex are not what she once believed them to be.

a reminder of how innocent young girls tend to keep quiet and blame themselves at times they most need to speak up. Five Tuesdays in Winter moved me, inspired me, thrilled me. It filled up every chamber of my heart. I loved this book.”—Ann Patchett well why did we have to end on silly magical realism...when everything was going so nicely...otherwise see above. A 14-year-old girl takes a babysitting job, goes to stay with a family for two weeks. She falls for the wrong man. In our time of anxiety and isolation, King writes stories to curl up in, by which I mean they afford us something rarely celebrated in literature: comfort.“— New York Times Book ReviewWhen in the Dordogne’ shares the story of a teenager, whose parents leave him behind when they take a two-month long vacation the summer before he begins high school. He was the fourth born to them, long after his older siblings, and so he viewed himself as ’an inconvenience, to which they seem to agree, if silently. He’s left in the care of two young men, Ed and Grant, who offer him a new view, of the world, life, love, and the difference love makes. A poignant and heartfelt novel about the effects of grief and the paths people take to get through life. I couldn’t put the book down.”— Seattle Times

This smooth, deliberate chronicle of creation keeps the men in their place and Casey firmly rooted at the center of her own story. Instead of casting her as a woman torn between archetypes of male creativity, Writers & Lovers portrays her as a woman in thrall to her own generative processes, a devotee to the art of (her own) attention.”— Los Angeles Times In "Waiting for Charlie," an elderly man visits his granddaughter Charlie in the hospital. A recent skiing accident has put her into a coma. He tries to communicate with her during the visit, eventually realizing his own fear of death. In “Timeline,” Lucy describes William’s perspective on his open marriage: “they let each other be exactly who they were in any given minute . . . as if after sixty seconds you became someone else” (p. 133). Several other stories in this book explore the idea of identity and its capacity to change—or not change—over time. How do you experience your own identity? Do you feel you have basically stayed the same person, or do you remember other versions of yourself from other times in your life? A story of a girl who moves to live with his brother to left her wrong choice behind, And her friendship with their neighbor, a single mom.An angry, powerful book seething with love and outrage for a community too often stereotyped or ignored. Five Days in Winter’ was one of the stories that pulled me in from the start - a man, Mitchell, who owns a bookstore, but can’t abide the ignorance of his customers, although his daughter loved them. He’s completely smitten by a young woman he works for him, but can’t manage to bring himself to let her know. He’s lost so many in his life, his wife who left him, his mother who died when he was very young, his father when he was a teenager, his friends, and some of his favourite customers. To me, a good short story is a slice of a larger one, with a good sense of what came before and what might come after, yet there must be some completeness in the slice itself. I enjoyed seeing how King's characters are dealing with their pasts and what their thoughts are for their futures. They could turn up in another story, and I think I'd recognise them again. She has three children and one of them only a baby, she tries to find some time to write. In meanwhile a strange man shows up at her door with her unfinished book.

Delightful… An unmistakable broadside against fiction’s love affair with macho strivers, even — or especially — when layers of lyricism and tenderness coat their machismo. The emotional force of Writers & Lovers is considerable.”— New York Times Book ReviewMarie-Claude becomes frustrated when Flo corrects her on the details of her “Austrian ghost story.” She realizes her ex-husband must have told Flo the story, but left out a detail key to Marie-Claude’s experience. Have you ever felt that one of your own experiences or stories was co-opted by someone else after you shared it? Are there family stories in your life that you feel a sense of ownership over, even if you were not there to experience them? Masterful… You can’t put it down, and you’ll feel larger and more connected once you finish it. Plus, it’s funny as hell.”— Dead Darlings