Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch

Author: Rivka Galchen
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 0374711216
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Book Description
Drawing on real historical documents but infused with the intensity of imagination, sly humor, and intellectual fire for which award-winning author Rivka Galchen’s writing is known, Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch is a tale for our time—the story of how a community becomes implicated in collective aggression and hysterical fear. The year is 1619, in the German duchy of Württemberg. Plague is spreading. The Thirty Years War has begun, and fear and suspicion are in the air throughout the Holy Roman Empire. In the small town of Leonberg, Katherina Kepler is accused of being a witch. An illiterate widow, Katherina is known by her neighbors for her herbal remedies and the success of her children, including her eldest, Johannes, who is the Imperial Mathematician and renowned author of the laws of planetary motion. It’s enough to make anyone jealous, and Katherina has done herself no favors by being out and about and in everyone’s business. So when the deranged and insipid Ursula Reinbold (or as Katherina calls her, the Werewolf) accuses Katherina of offering her a bitter, witchy drink that has made her ill, Katherina is in trouble. Her scientist son must turn his attention from the music of the spheres to the job of defending his mother. Facing the threat of financial ruin, torture, and even execution, Katherina tells her side of the story to her friend and next-door neighbor Simon, a reclusive widower imperiled by his own secrets. Provocative and entertaining, Galchen’s bold new novel touchingly illuminates a society, and a family, undone by superstition, the state, and the mortal convulsions of history.

Atmospheric Disturbances

Author: Rivka Galchen
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 9780374200114
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 256

Book Description
At once a moving love story, a dark comedy, a psychological thriller, and a deeply disturbing portrait of a fracturing mind, this highly inventive debut explores the mysterious nature of human relationships.

American Innovations

Author: Rivka Galchen
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 0374711208
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 193

Book Description
A BRILLIANT NEW COLLECTION OF SHORT STORIES FROM THE "CONSPICUOUSLY TALENTED" (TIME) RIVKA GALCHEN Winner of the Danuta Gleed Literary Award A New York Times Book Review Notable Book Chosen as one of fifteen remarkable books by women that are shaping the way we read and write in the 21st century by the book critics of The New York Times In one of the intensely imaginative stories in Rivka's Galchen's American Innovations, a young woman's furniture walks out on her. In another, the narrator feels compelled to promise to deliver a takeout order that has incorrectly been phoned in to her. In a third, the petty details of a property transaction illuminate the complicated pains and loves of a family. The tales in this groundbreaking collection are secretly in conversation with canonical stories, reimagined from the perspective of female characters. Just as Wallace Stevens's "Anecdote of the Jar" responds to John Keats's "Ode on a Grecian Urn," Galchen's "The Lost Order" covertly recapitulates James Thurber's "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty," while "The Region of Unlikeness" is a smoky and playful mirror to Jorge Luis Borges's "The Aleph." The title story, "American Innovations," revisits Nikolai Gogol's "The Nose." By turns realistic, fantastical, witty, and lyrical, these marvelously uneasy stories are deeply emotional and written in exuberant, pitch-perfect prose. Whether exploring the tensions in a mother-daughter relationship or the finer points of time travel, Galchen is a writer like none other today.

The Book of Gothel

Author: Mary McMyne
Publisher: Redhook
ISBN: 0316393312
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 380

Book Description
Everyone knows the story of Rapunzel in her tower, but do you know the story of the witch who put her there? Mary McMyne’s spellbinding debut reveals the truth behind the fairy tale—the truth they never wanted you to know, as only a witch might tell it. "Smart, swift, sure-footed and fleet-winged, The Book of Gothel launches its magic from a most reliable source: the troubled heart. Mary McMyne is a magician."—Gregory Maguire, NYT bestselling author of Wicked Germany, 1156. With her strange black eyes and even stranger fainting spells, young Haelewise has never quite fit in. Shunned by her village, her only solace lies in the stories her mother tells of child-stealing witches, of princes in wolf-skins, and of an ancient tower cloaked in mist, where women will find shelter if they are brave enough to seek it. When her mother dies, Haelewise is left unmoored. With nothing left for her in her village, she sets out to find the legendary tower her mother spoke of—a place called Gothel, where she meets a wise woman willing to take Haelewise under her wing. There, she discovers that magic is found not only in the realm of fairy tales. But Haelewise is not the only woman to seek refuge at Gothel. It’s also a haven for a girl named Rika, who carries with her a secret the church strives to keep hidden. A secret that reveals a dark world of ancient spells and murderous nobles, behind the world Haelewise has always known. Told from the witch's own perspective, The Book of Gothel is a lush, historical retelling filled with dark magic, crumbling towers, mysterious woods, and evil princes. This is the truth no one ever wanted you to know, as only a witch might tell it.

Girl's Guide to Witchcraft (15th Anniversary Edition)

Author: Mindy Klasky
Publisher: Peabridge Press
ISBN: 1950184110
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 375

Book Description
“[A]n irresistible tale of power and love, friendship and acceptance… Charming and insightful.” — Romantic Times Jane Madison has a problem. Or two. Or three. She has a desperate crush on her Imaginary Boyfriend, a man who doesn’t know she exists. Her doting grandmother insists she meet her long-absent mother. She’s working as a librarian, trapped in absurd costumes and serving up lattes in a last-ditch effort to keep her employer solvent. In lieu of a well-deserved raise, Jane is allowed to live in an ancient cottage on the library grounds. She soon discovers a hidden chamber filled with magical books that awaken her inner witch. Her first spell releases a smart-mouthed feline familiar. Her second makes her irresistible to men. Those witchy workings draw a compelling astral enforcer, David Montrose. Will magic—and David—solve Jane’s problems? Or only bring her more disasters? If you like romantic comedy, romcom, chicklit, or humorous and funny stories about libraries, librarians, witches, witchcraft, magic, fantasy, supernatural or paranormal events—like The Ex Hex, Payback’s a Witch, or Practical Magic—you will love this book! Magical Washington includes The Washington Witches Series, the Washington Vampires Series, the Washington Warders, and the Washington Medical: Vampire Ward Series: Girl's Guide to Witchcraft Sorcery and the Single Girl Magic and the Modern Girl Single Witch's Survival Guide Joy of Witchcraft Capital Magic "Dreaming of a Witch Christmas" "Nice Witches Don't Swear" Fright Court Law and Murder High Stakes Trial “Stake Me Out to the Ball Game” The Library, the Witch, and the Warder The Witch Doctor Is In Fae's Anatomy The Lady Doctor is a Vamp 110122mfm

The Astronomer & the Witch

Author: Ulinka Rublack
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0198736770
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 392

Book Description
In The Astronomer and the Witch, Ulinka Rublack pieces together the tale of this extraordinary episode in Kepler's life, one that takes us to the heart of his changing world.

The Manningtree Witches

Author: A. K. Blakemore
Publisher: Catapult
ISBN: 1646221575
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 321

Book Description
Wolf Hall meets The Favourite in this beguiling debut novel that brilliantly brings to life the residents of a small English town in the grip of the seventeenth-century witch trials and the young woman tasked with saving them all from themselves. "This is an intimate portrait of a clever if unworldly heroine who slides from amused observation of the 'moribund carnival atmosphere' in the household of a 'possessed' child to nervous uncertainty about the part in the proceedings played by her adored tutor to utter despair as a wagon carts her off to prison." —Alida Becker, The New York Times Book Review England, 1643. Puritanical fervor has gripped the nation. And in Manningtree, a town depleted of men since the wars began, the hot terror of damnation burns in the hearts of women left to their own devices. Rebecca West, fatherless and husbandless, chafes against the drudgery of her days, livened only occasionally by her infatuation with the handsome young clerk John Edes. But then a newcomer, who identifies himself as the Witchfinder General, arrives. A mysterious, pious figure dressed from head to toe in black, Matthew Hopkins takes over the Thorn Inn and begins to ask questions about what the women on the margins of this diminished community are up to. Dangerous rumors of covens, pacts, and bodily wants have begun to hang over women like Rebecca—and the future is as frightening as it is thrilling. Brimming with contemporary energy and resonance, The Manningtree Witches plunges its readers into the fever and menace of the English witch trials, where suspicion, mistrust, and betrayal run amok as a nation's arrogant male institutions start to realize that the very people they've suppressed for so long may be about to rise up and claim their freedom.

Magic Lessons

Author: Alice Hoffman
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1982108851
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 416

Book Description
In the 1600s, Maria was abandoned in a snowy field in rural England as a baby. Under the care of Hannah Owens, who recognizes that Maria has a gift, she learns about the 'Unnamed Arts.' When Maria is abandoned by the man who has declared his love for her, she follows him to Salem, Massachusetts. She invokes a curse that will haunt her family for generations. And she learns the lesson that she will carry with her for the rest of her life: Love is the only thing that matters.

Little Labors

Author: Rivka Galchen
Publisher: New Directions Publishing
ISBN: 0811222977
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 101

Book Description
In paperback at last: Rivka Galchen’s beloved baby bible—slyly hilarious, surprising, and absolutely essential reading for anyone who has ever had, held, or been a baby In this enchanting miscellany, Galchen notes that literature has more dogs than babies (and also more abortions), that the tally of children for many great women writers—Jane Bowles, Elizabeth Bishop, Virginia Woolf, Janet Frame, Willa Cather, Patricia Highsmith, Iris Murdoch, Djuna Barnes, Mavis Gallant—is zero, that orange is the new baby pink, that The Tale of Genji has no plot but plenty of drama about paternity, that babies exude an intoxicating black magic, and that a baby is a goldmine.

The Winter Trilogy: A Witch in Winter

Author: Ruth Warburton
Publisher: Hodder Children's Books
ISBN: 1444904728
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 222

Book Description
Anna Winterson doesn't know she's a witch and would probably mock you for believing in magic, but after moving to the small town of Winter with her father, she learns more than she ever wanted to about power. When Anna meets Seth, she is smitten, but when she enchants him to love her, she unwittingly amplifies a deadly conflict between two witch clans and splits her own heart in two. She wants to love Seth, to let him love her - but if it is her magic that's controlling his passion, then she is as monstrous as the witch clan who are trying to use her amazing powers for their own gain.