Other Available Formats
Overview
NOW A HULU ORIGINAL SERIES - From the New York Times bestselling author of Normal People . . . " A] cult-hit . . . a] sharply realistic comedy of adultery and friendship."--Entertainment WeeklySALLY ROONEY NAMED TO THE TIME 100 NEXT LIST - WINNER OF THE SUNDAY TIMES (UK) YOUNG WRITER OF THE YEAR AWARD - ONE OF BUZZFEED'S BEST BOOKS OF THE DECADE - ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Vogue, Slate - ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Elle Frances is a coolheaded and darkly observant young woman, vaguely pursuing a career in writing while studying in Dublin. Her best friend is the beautiful and endlessly self-possessed Bobbi. At a local poetry performance one night, they meet a well-known photographer, and as the girls are then gradually drawn into her world, Frances is reluctantly impressed by the older woman's sophisticated home and handsome husband, Nick. But however amusing Frances and Nick's flirtation seems at first, it begins to give way to a strange--and then painful--intimacy. Written with gemlike precision and marked by a sly sense of humor, Conversations with Friends is wonderfully alive to the pleasures and dangers of youth, and the messy edges of female friendship. SHORTLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL DUBLIN LITERARY AWARD "Sharp, funny, thought-provoking . . . a really great portrait of two young women as they're figuring out how to be adults."--Celeste Ng, Late Night with Seth Meyers Podcast "The dialogue is superb, as are the insights about communicating in the age of electronic devices. Rooney has a magical ability to write scenes of such verisimilitude that even when little happens they're suspenseful."--Curtis Sittenfeld, The Week "Rooney has the gift of imbuing everyday life with a sense of high stakes . . . a novel of delicious frictions."--New York "A writer of rare confidence, with a lucid, exacting style . . . One wonderful aspect of Rooney's consistently wonderful novel is the fierce clarity with which she examines the self-delusion that so often festers alongside presumed self-knowledge. . . . But Rooney's natural power is as a psychological portraitist. She is acute and sophisticated about the workings of innocence; the protagonist of this novel about growing up has no idea just how much of it she has left to do."--Alexandra Schwartz, The New Yorker "This book. This book. I read it in one day. I hear I'm not alone."--Sarah Jessica Parker (Instagram)
Customers Also Bought
Details
- ISBN-13: 9780451499059
- ISBN-10: 0451499050
- Publisher: Crown Publishing Group (NY)
- Publish Date: July 2017
- Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.8 x 1.1 inches
- Shipping Weight: 0.9 pounds
- Page Count: 320
Related Categories
March: The Hold List
Brooklyn
By Colm Tóibín
To be fair, there is sadness in Tóibín’s story of Eilis, a young Irish woman who emigrates to New York City—homesickness has never been so effectively portrayed. But as Eilis adapts to a dizzying amount of opportunity and freedom, she sees how her new life can be more fulfilling than anything she could have attained in Ireland. Brooklyn is masterfully understated, and Tóibín’s ability to capture his protagonist’s emotional state is astonishing. The tentative warmth of new love, the longing for a family across an ocean and the rush of liberation are nearly tangible on the page, and Tóibín’s evenhanded depictions of both Ireland and America give the novel a lingering, melancholic beauty.
—Savanna, Assistant Editor
The
Commitments
By Roddy Doyle
Doyle is known for his ability to spin an incisive yarn about the painful challenges of modern life and the struggles of the Irish people, like his Man Booker Award-winning novel, Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha. But his 1987 debut, The Commitments, is decidedly lighter fare. There’s just something about a story of disaffected youth who forge a bond through a shared love of music and pop culture that’s simply irresistible to me, and if you feel the same way, then you’ll inhale this story of a bunch of cheeky, working-class Dubliners determined to bring soul music to their fair city. It’s a rollicking and irreverent story steeped in the 1960s sounds of Motown. Be prepared to fall in love with these brash and complicated lads.
—Hilli, Assistant Editor
Conversations with Friends
By Sally Rooney
Friends become lovers, lovers become friends—Rooney’s debut novel is an introspective tale of fleeting pleasures, female sexuality, chemistry and miscommunication, as readers are invited to explore between the cracks of a 20-something woman’s relationships. Frances performs her spoken-word poems in Dublin with her best friend and former lover, Bobbi, and at one of these events they meet an enigmatic photographer named Melissa. Frances and Melissa’s husband, Nick, soon become entangled, and Frances finds herself sinking into a dark place, as her life becomes a web of messy emotions and convoluted motives. The drama is a slow build, the humor is sly, and the dialogue is on point.
—Cat, Deputy Editor
The Commitments
By Roddy Doyle
Doyle is known for his ability to spin an incisive yarn about the painful challenges of modern life and the struggles of the Irish people, like his Man Booker Award-winning novel, Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha. But his 1987 debut, The Commitments, is decidedly lighter fare. There’s just something about a story of disaffected youth who forge a bond through a shared love of music and pop culture that’s simply irresistible to me, and if you feel the same way, then you’ll inhale this story of a bunch of cheeky, working-class Dubliners determined to bring soul music to their fair city. It’s a rollicking and irreverent story steeped in the 1960s sounds of Motown. Be prepared to fall in love with these brash and complicated lads.
—Hilli, Assistant Editor
Himself
By Jess Kidd
A darkly comic murder mystery set in a small Irish village, Kidd’s debut also has a macabre twist. Her handsome sleuth Mahony, who rolls into town to catch his mother’s murderer, can see and talk to the dead. His unjustly slain mother, Orla, had the same powers—which may or may not have led to her death while Mahony was still an infant. To catch the killer, Mahony teams up with one of the town’s many eccentrics, former actress Mrs. Cauley, and they hatch a plot straight out of a Shakespearean drama. They’ll put on a play and place their suspects in the cast. If you’ve read or seen Hamlet, you know things aren’t going to go well. In Kidd’s hands, the chaos is glorious.
—Savanna, Assistant Editor
Broken Harbor
By Tana French
If you haven’t read French’s bestselling six-book Dublin Murder Squad series, now is the time, as Starz is planning an adaptation of the first two books, but it’s not necessary to read them in order. Broken Harbor (the fourth book) is my personal favorite. It’s more of a classic murder mystery than some of the others (and not nearly as emotionally eviscerating as In the Woods), and I loved the narrator, Detective Mick “Scorcher” Kennedy, who was a bad guy in Faithful Place but gets a second chance during this investigation of a grisly triple homicide in Dublin. Add in Scorcher’s sister, a troubled woman who dregs up some unsavory childhood memories, and readers are in for a hell of a ride. It’s chilling, creepy and addicting—a perfect police procedural.
—Cat, Deputy Editor
March: The Hold List
Brooklyn
By Colm Tóibín
To be fair, there is sadness in Tóibín’s story of Eilis, a young Irish woman who emigrates to New York City—homesickness has never been so effectively portrayed. But as Eilis adapts to a dizzying amount of opportunity and freedom, she sees how her new life can be more fulfilling than anything she could have attained in Ireland. Brooklyn is masterfully understated, and Tóibín’s ability to capture his protagonist’s emotional state is astonishing. The tentative warmth of new love, the longing for a family across an ocean and the rush of liberation are nearly tangible on the page, and Tóibín’s evenhanded depictions of both Ireland and America give the novel a lingering, melancholic beauty.
—Savanna, Assistant Editor
The
Commitments
By Roddy Doyle
Doyle is known for his ability to spin an incisive yarn about the painful challenges of modern life and the struggles of the Irish people, like his Man Booker Award-winning novel, Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha. But his 1987 debut, The Commitments, is decidedly lighter fare. There’s just something about a story of disaffected youth who forge a bond through a shared love of music and pop culture that’s simply irresistible to me, and if you feel the same way, then you’ll inhale this story of a bunch of cheeky, working-class Dubliners determined to bring soul music to their fair city. It’s a rollicking and irreverent story steeped in the 1960s sounds of Motown. Be prepared to fall in love with these brash and complicated lads.
—Hilli, Assistant Editor
Conversations with Friends
By Sally Rooney
Friends become lovers, lovers become friends—Rooney’s debut novel is an introspective tale of fleeting pleasures, female sexuality, chemistry and miscommunication, as readers are invited to explore between the cracks of a 20-something woman’s relationships. Frances performs her spoken-word poems in Dublin with her best friend and former lover, Bobbi, and at one of these events they meet an enigmatic photographer named Melissa. Frances and Melissa’s husband, Nick, soon become entangled, and Frances finds herself sinking into a dark place, as her life becomes a web of messy emotions and convoluted motives. The drama is a slow build, the humor is sly, and the dialogue is on point.
—Cat, Deputy Editor
The Commitments
By Roddy Doyle
Doyle is known for his ability to spin an incisive yarn about the painful challenges of modern life and the struggles of the Irish people, like his Man Booker Award-winning novel, Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha. But his 1987 debut, The Commitments, is decidedly lighter fare. There’s just something about a story of disaffected youth who forge a bond through a shared love of music and pop culture that’s simply irresistible to me, and if you feel the same way, then you’ll inhale this story of a bunch of cheeky, working-class Dubliners determined to bring soul music to their fair city. It’s a rollicking and irreverent story steeped in the 1960s sounds of Motown. Be prepared to fall in love with these brash and complicated lads.
—Hilli, Assistant Editor
Himself
By Jess Kidd
A darkly comic murder mystery set in a small Irish village, Kidd’s debut also has a macabre twist. Her handsome sleuth Mahony, who rolls into town to catch his mother’s murderer, can see and talk to the dead. His unjustly slain mother, Orla, had the same powers—which may or may not have led to her death while Mahony was still an infant. To catch the killer, Mahony teams up with one of the town’s many eccentrics, former actress Mrs. Cauley, and they hatch a plot straight out of a Shakespearean drama. They’ll put on a play and place their suspects in the cast. If you’ve read or seen Hamlet, you know things aren’t going to go well. In Kidd’s hands, the chaos is glorious.
—Savanna, Assistant Editor
Broken Harbor
By Tana French
If you haven’t read French’s bestselling six-book Dublin Murder Squad series, now is the time, as Starz is planning an adaptation of the first two books, but it’s not necessary to read them in order. Broken Harbor (the fourth book) is my personal favorite. It’s more of a classic murder mystery than some of the others (and not nearly as emotionally eviscerating as In the Woods), and I loved the narrator, Detective Mick “Scorcher” Kennedy, who was a bad guy in Faithful Place but gets a second chance during this investigation of a grisly triple homicide in Dublin. Add in Scorcher’s sister, a troubled woman who dregs up some unsavory childhood memories, and readers are in for a hell of a ride. It’s chilling, creepy and addicting—a perfect police procedural.
—Cat, Deputy Editor