He and Annie have been famous, nobodies, and mingled with the rich and crazy. Through it all, they've been passionate lovers and fast friends. But when Annie dies of cancer, Herbie is lost. If you think this is going to be a tragic tale about grief, think again. Herbie is too cantankerous, sly, and charming to keel over. Enter Olive, a beautiful bartender who just might be a great actress; Candy, Herbie and Annie's neurotic daughter; and a woman named Billy, the tough-talking golf pro who teaches Herbie more about his psyche than about his lousy swing. After Annie is a hilarious and beautifully rendered novel about a man off the rails, battling through the middle-aged wilderness days he hoped never to face alone. It is a book that examines the inevitable passing of time with clarity and wry brilliance, and a story of surprising power.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “Part of Quindlen’s gift is that you don’t just read about these characters, you inhabit them. . . . Luminous with life, hope and the power of love.”—People (A Book of the Week Pick) “[A] quietly revelatory and gently gleaming gem of a book.”—The New York Times Book Review (Editors’ Choice) Anna Quindlen’s trademark wisdom on family, friendship, and the ties that bind us are at the center of this novel about the power of love to transcend loss and triumph over adversity, by the author of Still Life with Bread Crumbs and One True Thing. When Annie Brown dies suddenly, her husband, her children, and her closest friend are left to find a way forward without the woman who has been the lynchpin of all their lives. Bill is overwhelmed without his beloved wife, and Annemarie wrestles with the bad habits her best friend had helped her overcome. And Ali, the eldest of Annie’s children, has to grow up overnight, to care for her younger brothers and even her father and to puzzle out for herself many of the mysteries of adult life. Over the course of the next year what saves them all is Annie, ever-present in their minds, loving but not sentimental, caring but nobody’s fool, a voice in their heads that is funny and sharp and remarkably clear. The power she has given to those who loved her is the power to go on without her. The lesson they learn is that no one beloved is ever truly gone. Written in Quindlen’s emotionally resonant voice and with her deep and generous understanding of people, After Annie is about hope, and about the unexpected power of adversity to change us in profound and indelible ways.

This is a book about ordinary people—plumbers, artists and accountants, bakers and beauticians, teachers and lawyers—who have been able to receive communication from loved ones who have died. Included here are accounts from over 80 people across the country who have had contact with the dead through the diaphanous veil that separates them from the living. The book begins with the story of Annie’s deceased daughter speaking to her in the early morning hours. The communication was so transformative that she began to share her experience. Much to her surprise, she discovered that after-death communication is much more common than is normally assumed, and she began to connect with other folks across the country who had similar experiences. Each of the ten chapters is organized around a specific kind of after-death communication. Included here are chapters on dreams, verbatim conversations, and synchronicity through nature and various other physical manifestations, descriptions of the results of these occurrences, and advice on how to open up to after-death communication. This book inspires in the reader reassurance, courage, healing, and a sense of wonder. From the author: “The time is ripe for people to recognize the blessing of how frequently our dead beloveds return . . . to confirm the reality that consciousness continues beyond the grave and to remind us that there is much more to death than the physical cessation of breath and pulse. It is time to break the silence, time to stop keeping these powerful healing experiences to ourselves. It is time to allow the experiences themselves, and the positive effect they have on the living.”

In recent years, the New Formalist movement has been growing and changing quickly, as poets from a variety of backgrounds and perspectives have found in formal poetics a tool of great potential range and power. The common perception of New Formalism's methods and goals, however, has altered much more slowly. "After New Formalism" is part of an expanding conversation on the formal possibilities of contemporary poetry and on the implications of formalism for poetic history, practice, and theory. Contributors include Dana Gioia, Mark Jarman, David Mason, Marilyn Nelson, Molly Peacock, and Adrienne Rich, among others. From the Introduction "Over the years the mission and focus of this book changed to include thoughtful essays by poets engaging with formalism from outside its confines, as well as by younger poets who came to formalism with a more theoretical bent than their elders. While some of the essays here come much closer than others to my own vision of a "multiformalism" that truly encompasses the many formal poetic traditions, including experimental traditions, now native to the United States, this collection of thoughts on form by poets contains fresh insights about the implications of formalism for poetic history, practice, and theory." Annie Finch is the author of "The Ghost of Meter: Culture and Prosody in American Free Verse" (Michigan), and the editor of "A Formal Feeling Comes: Poems in Form by Contemporary Women "(Story Line, 1994). She teaches creative writing at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.

Riveting and disquieting, After Anna is a groundbreaking domestic thriller, as well as a novel of emotional justice and legal intrigue. New York Times bestselling author Lisa Scottoline keeps readers on their toes until the final shocking page. Nobody cuts deeper than family... Dr. Noah Alderman, a widower and single father, has remarried a wonderful woman, Maggie Ippolitti, and for the first time in a long time, he and his young son are happy. Despite her longing for the daughter she hasn’t seen since she was a baby, Maggie is happy too, and she’s even more overjoyed when she unexpectedly gets another chance to be a mother to the child she thought she'd lost forever, her only daughter Anna. Maggie and Noah know that having Anna around will change their lives, but they would never have guessed that everything would go wrong, and so quickly. Anna turns out to be a gorgeous seventeen-year-old who balks at living under their rules, though Maggie, ecstatic to have her daughter back, ignores the red flags that hint at the trouble brewing in a once-perfect marriage and home. Events take a heartbreaking turn when Anna is murdered and Noah is accused and tried for the heinous crime. Maggie must face not only the devastation of losing her daughter, but the realization that Anna's murder may have been at the hands of a husband she loves. In the wake of this tragedy, new information drives Maggie to search for the truth, leading her to discover something darker than she could have ever imagined. Praise for Lisa Scottoline: "A deliciously distracting thriller...Scottoline illuminat[es] the landing strip of revelations and truths in a deliciously slow and intense way." —The Washington Post on After Anna "Scottoline keeps the pace relentless as she drops a looming threat into the heart of an idyllic suburban community, causing readers to hold their breath in anticipation." —Booklist on One Perfect Lie "Readers can be assured that the author nails the high school milieu, from athletic rivalries to sexting...they're in for one thrilling ride." —Kirkus on One Perfect Lie "Entertaining...This fast-paced read culminates in a daring chase that would play well on the big screen." —Publishers Weekly

Liza begins to doubt her feelings for Annie after someone finds out about their relationship, and realizes, after starting college, that her denial of love for Annie was a mistake. Reprint.

From Pulitzer Prize finalist Annie Jacobsen, the untold USA Today bestselling story of the CIA's secret paramilitary units. Surprise . . . your target. Kill . . . your enemy. Vanish . . . without a trace. When diplomacy fails, and war is unwise, the president calls on the CIA's Special Activities Division, a highly-classified branch of the CIA and the most effective, black operations force in the world. Originally known as the president's guerrilla warfare corps, SAD conducts risky and ruthless operations that have evolved over time to defend America from its enemies. Almost every American president since World War II has asked the CIA to conduct sabotage, subversion and, yes, assassination. With unprecedented access to forty-two men and women who proudly and secretly worked on CIA covert operations from the dawn of the Cold War to the present day, along with declassified documents and deep historical research, Pulitzer Prize finalist Annie Jacobsen unveils -- like never before -- a complex world of individuals working in treacherous environments populated with killers, connivers, and saboteurs. Despite Hollywood notions of off-book operations and external secret hires, covert action is actually one piece in a colossal foreign policy machine. Written with the pacing of a thriller, Surprise, Kill, Vanish brings to vivid life the sheer pandemonium and chaos, as well as the unforgettable human will to survive and the intellectual challenge of not giving up hope that define paramilitary and intelligence work. Jacobsen's exclusive interviews -- with members of the CIA's Senior Intelligence Service (equivalent to the Pentagon's generals), its counterterrorism chiefs, targeting officers, and Special Activities Division's Ground Branch operators who conduct today's close-quarters killing operations around the world -- reveal, for the first time, the enormity of this shocking, controversial, and morally complex terrain. Is the CIA's paramilitary army America's weaponized strength, or a liability to its principled standing in the world? Every operation reported in this book, however unsettling, is legal.