Home Games

Home Games

Author: Benjamin Markovits

Publisher: HarperCollins

Published: 2020-02-04

Total Pages: 246

ISBN-13: 0062742310

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Award-winning adult author Benjamin Markovits delivers a poignant coming-of-age middle grade story that will give comfort to anyone feeling like a small fish in a Texas-size sea. Perfect for fans of Kevin Henkes, Rebecca Stead, and Kate DiCamillo. Twelve-year-old Ben is a shy, quiet kid. His life isn’t perfect, but he feels at home in his New York City apartment. Then his dad takes a job in London, and everything changes. His parents separate, and Ben’s mom moves them back to her hometown of Austin, Texas. Ben’s simple life is suddenly complicated. He misses his apartment, his best friend, Jake, and his dad. Then he meets Mabley, who becomes a bright spot to Ben’s day. But when his mom starts working at his new school and making friends with his teacher, Ben finds himself at the center of all the problems the adults around him can’t resolve—and even some of his own. That includes joining the school’s basketball team, where Mabley’s best friend is the star player. After being pushed around, looking for his place, Ben will have to learn how to stand his ground.


Book Synopsis Home Games by : Benjamin Markovits

Download or read book Home Games written by Benjamin Markovits and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2020-02-04 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Award-winning adult author Benjamin Markovits delivers a poignant coming-of-age middle grade story that will give comfort to anyone feeling like a small fish in a Texas-size sea. Perfect for fans of Kevin Henkes, Rebecca Stead, and Kate DiCamillo. Twelve-year-old Ben is a shy, quiet kid. His life isn’t perfect, but he feels at home in his New York City apartment. Then his dad takes a job in London, and everything changes. His parents separate, and Ben’s mom moves them back to her hometown of Austin, Texas. Ben’s simple life is suddenly complicated. He misses his apartment, his best friend, Jake, and his dad. Then he meets Mabley, who becomes a bright spot to Ben’s day. But when his mom starts working at his new school and making friends with his teacher, Ben finds himself at the center of all the problems the adults around him can’t resolve—and even some of his own. That includes joining the school’s basketball team, where Mabley’s best friend is the star player. After being pushed around, looking for his place, Ben will have to learn how to stand his ground.

Playing Days

Playing Days

Author: Benjamin Markovits

Publisher: Faber & Faber

Published: 2010-06-03

Total Pages: 334

ISBN-13: 0571253164

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Fresh out of college and uncertain how to proceed with life, the narrator of Ben Markovits' Playing Days finds himself drifting towards a career that once obsessed his father - professional basketball. Gaining a place on a minor league German team, he leaves Texas and lands in the small rather desolate town of Landshut, playing basketball with an eclectic group of teammates, training for most of the day and then trying to find ways to fill the rest of it. It's an odd, isolated existence, punctuated by the intense excitement - and often intense disappointment - of the game. But then he meets Anke, a young single mother who happens to be the former wife of one of his teammates; and their tentative, burgeoning relationship becomes as significant and as life changing as the game itself. Beautifully written, Playing Days is entirely recognisable in its depiction of the first long summer after university. Tinged with the melancholy and nostalgia of early steps into adulthood, it's the story of a young man's first experience of adult love, and of the discovery of his own limitations.


Book Synopsis Playing Days by : Benjamin Markovits

Download or read book Playing Days written by Benjamin Markovits and published by Faber & Faber. This book was released on 2010-06-03 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fresh out of college and uncertain how to proceed with life, the narrator of Ben Markovits' Playing Days finds himself drifting towards a career that once obsessed his father - professional basketball. Gaining a place on a minor league German team, he leaves Texas and lands in the small rather desolate town of Landshut, playing basketball with an eclectic group of teammates, training for most of the day and then trying to find ways to fill the rest of it. It's an odd, isolated existence, punctuated by the intense excitement - and often intense disappointment - of the game. But then he meets Anke, a young single mother who happens to be the former wife of one of his teammates; and their tentative, burgeoning relationship becomes as significant and as life changing as the game itself. Beautifully written, Playing Days is entirely recognisable in its depiction of the first long summer after university. Tinged with the melancholy and nostalgia of early steps into adulthood, it's the story of a young man's first experience of adult love, and of the discovery of his own limitations.

Imposture: A Novel

Imposture: A Novel

Author: Benjamin Markovits

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2007-05-17

Total Pages: 223

ISBN-13: 0393346269

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"[Markovits] leaves us wanting, in the most delicious way, more." —Kirsty Gunn, The Observer Lord Byron was the greatest writer and the most notorious, scandalous lover of his age—an irresistible attraction for a sheltered, bookish, and passionate young woman like Eliza Esmond. Eliza believes she’s met Byron on the doorstep of his publisher, and that her dreams have come true when he arranges to meet her in secret. But what if the man she believes to be Byron is someone else—a look-alike named John Polidori, who once toured Europe as Byron’s doctor?


Book Synopsis Imposture: A Novel by : Benjamin Markovits

Download or read book Imposture: A Novel written by Benjamin Markovits and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2007-05-17 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "[Markovits] leaves us wanting, in the most delicious way, more." —Kirsty Gunn, The Observer Lord Byron was the greatest writer and the most notorious, scandalous lover of his age—an irresistible attraction for a sheltered, bookish, and passionate young woman like Eliza Esmond. Eliza believes she’s met Byron on the doorstep of his publisher, and that her dreams have come true when he arranges to meet her in secret. But what if the man she believes to be Byron is someone else—a look-alike named John Polidori, who once toured Europe as Byron’s doctor?

You Don't Have to Live Like This

You Don't Have to Live Like This

Author: Benjamin Markovits

Publisher: HarperCollins

Published: 2015-07-07

Total Pages: 400

ISBN-13: 0062376624

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A frighteningly prescient novel of today’s America—one man’s story of a racially charged real estate experiment in Detroit, Michigan. “You get in the habit of living a certain kind of life, you keep going in a certain direction, but most of the pressure on you is just momentum. As soon as you stop the momentum goes away. It’s easier than people think to walk out on things, I mean things like cities, leases, relationships and jobs.” Greg Marnier, Marny to his friends, leaves a job he doesn’t much like and moves to Detroit, Michigan in 2009, where an old friend has a big idea about real estate and the revitalization of a once great American city. Once there, he gets involved in a fist-fight between two of his friends, a racially charged trial, an act of vigilante justice, a love affair with a local high school teacher, and a game of three-on-three basketball with the President—not to mention the money-soaked real estate project itself, cut out of 600 acres of emaciated Detroit. Marny’s billionaire buddy from Yale, Robert James, calls his project “the Groupon model for gentrification,” others call it “New Jamestown,” and Marny calls it home— until Robert James asks him to leave. This is the story of what went wrong. You Don’t Have to Live Like This is the breakout novel from the “fabulously real” (Guardian) voice of the only American included in Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists. Using the framework of our present reality, Benjamin Markovits blurs the line between the fictional and the fact-based, and captures an invisible current threaded throughout American politics, economics, and society that is waiting to explode.


Book Synopsis You Don't Have to Live Like This by : Benjamin Markovits

Download or read book You Don't Have to Live Like This written by Benjamin Markovits and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2015-07-07 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A frighteningly prescient novel of today’s America—one man’s story of a racially charged real estate experiment in Detroit, Michigan. “You get in the habit of living a certain kind of life, you keep going in a certain direction, but most of the pressure on you is just momentum. As soon as you stop the momentum goes away. It’s easier than people think to walk out on things, I mean things like cities, leases, relationships and jobs.” Greg Marnier, Marny to his friends, leaves a job he doesn’t much like and moves to Detroit, Michigan in 2009, where an old friend has a big idea about real estate and the revitalization of a once great American city. Once there, he gets involved in a fist-fight between two of his friends, a racially charged trial, an act of vigilante justice, a love affair with a local high school teacher, and a game of three-on-three basketball with the President—not to mention the money-soaked real estate project itself, cut out of 600 acres of emaciated Detroit. Marny’s billionaire buddy from Yale, Robert James, calls his project “the Groupon model for gentrification,” others call it “New Jamestown,” and Marny calls it home— until Robert James asks him to leave. This is the story of what went wrong. You Don’t Have to Live Like This is the breakout novel from the “fabulously real” (Guardian) voice of the only American included in Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists. Using the framework of our present reality, Benjamin Markovits blurs the line between the fictional and the fact-based, and captures an invisible current threaded throughout American politics, economics, and society that is waiting to explode.

Christmas in Austin

Christmas in Austin

Author: Benjamin Markovits

Publisher: Faber & Faber

Published: 2019-11-05

Total Pages: 480

ISBN-13: 0571363180

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'A novel that everyone should read before they face their own family Christmas.' The Times When the four Essinger children gather in Austin for Christmas, they all bring their news. Nathan wants to become a federal judge. Susie's husband has taken a job in England. Jean has asked her boyfriend and (once-married) boss to meet her family. Paul has broken up with Dana, mother of their son Cal. But their parents have plans, too, and Liesel, the materfamilias, has invited Dana and Cal to stay, hoping to bring them back together. As the week unfolds, each of the Essingers has to confront the tensions and conflicts between old families and new.


Book Synopsis Christmas in Austin by : Benjamin Markovits

Download or read book Christmas in Austin written by Benjamin Markovits and published by Faber & Faber. This book was released on 2019-11-05 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'A novel that everyone should read before they face their own family Christmas.' The Times When the four Essinger children gather in Austin for Christmas, they all bring their news. Nathan wants to become a federal judge. Susie's husband has taken a job in England. Jean has asked her boyfriend and (once-married) boss to meet her family. Paul has broken up with Dana, mother of their son Cal. But their parents have plans, too, and Liesel, the materfamilias, has invited Dana and Cal to stay, hoping to bring them back together. As the week unfolds, each of the Essingers has to confront the tensions and conflicts between old families and new.

Childish Loves: A Novel

Childish Loves: A Novel

Author: Benjamin Markovits

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2011-08-29

Total Pages: 411

ISBN-13: 0393346277

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The last piece of a literary puzzle falls into place in the final novel of Benjamin Markovits’s Byron trilogy. When his former colleague Peter Sullivan dies, Ben Markovits inherits unpublished manuscripts about the life of Lord Byron—including the novels Imposture and A Quiet Adjustment. Ben’s own literary career is in the doldrums, and he tries to revive it by publishing and writing about his dead friend, whose reimagining of Byron’s lost memoirs—titled Childish Loves—may provide a key to Sullivan’s own life and tarnished reputation. Acting as a literary sleuth, Ben sorts through boxes of Sullivan’s writing; reads between the lines of his scandalous, Byron-inspired stories; meets with the Society for the Publication of the Dead; and tracks down people from Peter’s past in an effort to untangle rumor from reality. In the process, he crafts a masterful story-within-a-story that turns on uncomfortable questions about childhood and sexual awakening, innocence and attraction, while exploring the lives of three very different writers and their brushes with success and failure in both literature and life.


Book Synopsis Childish Loves: A Novel by : Benjamin Markovits

Download or read book Childish Loves: A Novel written by Benjamin Markovits and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2011-08-29 with total page 411 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The last piece of a literary puzzle falls into place in the final novel of Benjamin Markovits’s Byron trilogy. When his former colleague Peter Sullivan dies, Ben Markovits inherits unpublished manuscripts about the life of Lord Byron—including the novels Imposture and A Quiet Adjustment. Ben’s own literary career is in the doldrums, and he tries to revive it by publishing and writing about his dead friend, whose reimagining of Byron’s lost memoirs—titled Childish Loves—may provide a key to Sullivan’s own life and tarnished reputation. Acting as a literary sleuth, Ben sorts through boxes of Sullivan’s writing; reads between the lines of his scandalous, Byron-inspired stories; meets with the Society for the Publication of the Dead; and tracks down people from Peter’s past in an effort to untangle rumor from reality. In the process, he crafts a masterful story-within-a-story that turns on uncomfortable questions about childhood and sexual awakening, innocence and attraction, while exploring the lives of three very different writers and their brushes with success and failure in both literature and life.

A Weekend in New York

A Weekend in New York

Author: Benjamin Markovits

Publisher: Faber & Faber

Published: 2018-06-05

Total Pages: 347

ISBN-13: 0571338070

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'Elegant and absorbing.' Guardian'A book to be savoured.' Observer'Intimate, funny . . . Masterfully done.' Daily Mail'Sophisticated and engrossing.' Literary ReviewPaul is a mid-ranking tennis professional on the ATP tour. His girlfriend Dana is an ex-model and photographer, and together with their two-year-old son they form a tableau of the contented upper-middle-class New York family. But Paul's parents and siblings have come to stay in the build-up to the US Open, and with summer storms brewing, several generations of domestic tension are brought to boiling point . . .


Book Synopsis A Weekend in New York by : Benjamin Markovits

Download or read book A Weekend in New York written by Benjamin Markovits and published by Faber & Faber. This book was released on 2018-06-05 with total page 347 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Elegant and absorbing.' Guardian'A book to be savoured.' Observer'Intimate, funny . . . Masterfully done.' Daily Mail'Sophisticated and engrossing.' Literary ReviewPaul is a mid-ranking tennis professional on the ATP tour. His girlfriend Dana is an ex-model and photographer, and together with their two-year-old son they form a tableau of the contented upper-middle-class New York family. But Paul's parents and siblings have come to stay in the build-up to the US Open, and with summer storms brewing, several generations of domestic tension are brought to boiling point . . .

The Syme Papers

The Syme Papers

Author: Benjamin Markovits

Publisher: Faber & Faber

Published: 2011-02-17

Total Pages: 548

ISBN-13: 0571268315

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Douglas Pitt is a man obsessed. Laughed at, mocked, and dismissed at every turn, Pitt has dedicated the best part of an unremarkable academic career attempting to prove the genius of Samuel Highgate Syme (b.1794, Baltimore; soldier, geologist, inventor). Pitt's postulation is simple enough: Syme, through some fault, wrong-doing, conspiracy or mischance, has not been credited with the recognition he deserves for hitting upon a key discovery in the advance of modern science - the theory of continental drift. Lacking the crucial last piece of the puzzle to convince his peers and normalize his family life, Pitt's emotional equilibrium is stabilised in a magical stroke of fortune when he uncovers a contemporary manuscript written by a fledgling German scientist, Friedrich Muller, which recounts a year (1821) in the company of the irrepressible Syme. Switching between these beguiling and colourful narratives, The Syme Papers takes the reader on an odyssey into the heart of Maryland and Virginia in the 1820s by way of London and Texas today. An epic stew of intellectual procrastination, early nineteenth-century picaresque and late twentieth-century angst, it is a novel of genius and failure; of a man who thought he could prove the world was hollow, and in the glorious process of discovery, broke his own heart. Teeming with comic detail and fierce intelligence, The Syme Papers recreates a time when to question the world and the origins of creation was the greatest project a scientist could undertake.


Book Synopsis The Syme Papers by : Benjamin Markovits

Download or read book The Syme Papers written by Benjamin Markovits and published by Faber & Faber. This book was released on 2011-02-17 with total page 548 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Douglas Pitt is a man obsessed. Laughed at, mocked, and dismissed at every turn, Pitt has dedicated the best part of an unremarkable academic career attempting to prove the genius of Samuel Highgate Syme (b.1794, Baltimore; soldier, geologist, inventor). Pitt's postulation is simple enough: Syme, through some fault, wrong-doing, conspiracy or mischance, has not been credited with the recognition he deserves for hitting upon a key discovery in the advance of modern science - the theory of continental drift. Lacking the crucial last piece of the puzzle to convince his peers and normalize his family life, Pitt's emotional equilibrium is stabilised in a magical stroke of fortune when he uncovers a contemporary manuscript written by a fledgling German scientist, Friedrich Muller, which recounts a year (1821) in the company of the irrepressible Syme. Switching between these beguiling and colourful narratives, The Syme Papers takes the reader on an odyssey into the heart of Maryland and Virginia in the 1820s by way of London and Texas today. An epic stew of intellectual procrastination, early nineteenth-century picaresque and late twentieth-century angst, it is a novel of genius and failure; of a man who thought he could prove the world was hollow, and in the glorious process of discovery, broke his own heart. Teeming with comic detail and fierce intelligence, The Syme Papers recreates a time when to question the world and the origins of creation was the greatest project a scientist could undertake.

A Quiet Adjustment

A Quiet Adjustment

Author: Benjamin Markovits

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 358

ISBN-13: 9780393067002

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"Annabella Milbanke is beautiful, intelligent, self-possessed, and determined to buck the social conventions of her sheltered girlhood. The moment she sets eyes on the rock star of her age - the poetic genius and scandalous libertine Lord Byron - her every budding appetite (sensual, romantic, worldly) is stirred. Whether by love or by will, she must have Byron - just as, for an entirely different set of reasons, he must have her." "As Lady Byron, she believes she can suffer all for love - except, perhaps, her husband's most scandalous secret: his tormented, incestuous love for his half-sister, Augusta. These three people will pull one another into a taut, devastating drama of helpless intimacy." "A Quiet Adjustment uses the biographical facts of Lord Byron's marriage and his relationship with his half-sister to paint the selfishness of the most sensitive artistic temperament, the pathos of mismatched marriage, the volatility of creative energies, and the limitations of morality and so-called good intentions."--BOOK JACKET.


Book Synopsis A Quiet Adjustment by : Benjamin Markovits

Download or read book A Quiet Adjustment written by Benjamin Markovits and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2008 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Annabella Milbanke is beautiful, intelligent, self-possessed, and determined to buck the social conventions of her sheltered girlhood. The moment she sets eyes on the rock star of her age - the poetic genius and scandalous libertine Lord Byron - her every budding appetite (sensual, romantic, worldly) is stirred. Whether by love or by will, she must have Byron - just as, for an entirely different set of reasons, he must have her." "As Lady Byron, she believes she can suffer all for love - except, perhaps, her husband's most scandalous secret: his tormented, incestuous love for his half-sister, Augusta. These three people will pull one another into a taut, devastating drama of helpless intimacy." "A Quiet Adjustment uses the biographical facts of Lord Byron's marriage and his relationship with his half-sister to paint the selfishness of the most sensitive artistic temperament, the pathos of mismatched marriage, the volatility of creative energies, and the limitations of morality and so-called good intentions."--BOOK JACKET.

Either Side of Winter

Either Side of Winter

Author: Benjamin Markovits

Publisher: Faber & Faber

Published: 2010-12-09

Total Pages: 299

ISBN-13: 0571268285

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In Fall we see the tentative beginnings of an unlikely romance - between schoolteacher Amy and drifting former graduate, Charles. In Winter we hear how her colleague Howard learns, seventeen years too late, that he has a daughter following a brief fling with collegemate Annie. Spring and Summer tell the story of his daughter's friend Rachel's relationships with her literature teacher, Stuart, and her dying father Reuben. Executed with exquisite sympathy, tenderness and emotional nuance, Either Side of Winter is a moving and elegiac picture of people whose lives are inextricably linked by circumstance, community - and a need to be loved.


Book Synopsis Either Side of Winter by : Benjamin Markovits

Download or read book Either Side of Winter written by Benjamin Markovits and published by Faber & Faber. This book was released on 2010-12-09 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Fall we see the tentative beginnings of an unlikely romance - between schoolteacher Amy and drifting former graduate, Charles. In Winter we hear how her colleague Howard learns, seventeen years too late, that he has a daughter following a brief fling with collegemate Annie. Spring and Summer tell the story of his daughter's friend Rachel's relationships with her literature teacher, Stuart, and her dying father Reuben. Executed with exquisite sympathy, tenderness and emotional nuance, Either Side of Winter is a moving and elegiac picture of people whose lives are inextricably linked by circumstance, community - and a need to be loved.