Special edition of Paul Harding’s Pulitzer Prize–winning debut novel—featuring a new foreword by Marilynne Robinson and book club extras inside In this deluxe tenth anniversary edition, Marilynne Robinson introduces the beautiful novel Tinkers, which begins with an old man who lies dying. As time collapses into memory, he travels deep into his past, where he is reunited with his father and relives the wonder and pain of his impoverished New England youth. At once heartbreaking and life affirming, Tinkers is an elegiac meditation on love, loss, and the fierce beauty of nature. The story behind this New York Times bestselling debut novel—the first independently published Pulitzer Prize winner since A Confederacy of Dunces received the award nearly thirty years before—is as extraordinary as the elegant prose within it. Inspired by his family’s history, Paul Harding began writing Tinkers when his rock band broke up. Following numerous rejections from large publishers, Harding was about to shelve the manuscript when Bellevue Literary Press offered a contract. After being accepted by BLP, but before it was even published, the novel developed a following among independent booksellers from coast to coast. Readers and critics soon fell in love, and it went on to receive the Pulitzer Prize, prompting the New York Times to declare the novel’s remarkable success “the most dramatic literary Cinderella story of recent memory.” That story is still being written as readers across the country continue to discover this modern classic, which has now sold over half a million copies, proving once again that great literature has a thriving and passionate audience. Paul Harding is the author of two novels about multiple generations of a New England family: Enon and the Pulitzer Prize–winning Tinkers. He teaches at Stony Brook Southampton.

Moving from the elegant drawing rooms of Lahore to the mud villages of rural Multan, a powerful collection of short stories about feudal Pakistan. An impoverished young woman becomes a wealthy relative’s mistress; an electrician on the make confronts his desperate assailant to protect his most prized possession; a farm manager rises far in the world—but his family discovers after his death the transience of power; a maid, who advances herself through sexual favours, unexpectedly falls in love. In these linked stories about the family and household staff of the ageing KK Harouni, we meet masters and servants, landlords and supplicants, politicians and electricians, village women, and Karachi housewives. Part Chekhov, part RK Narayan, these stories are dark and light, complex and humane; at heart about the relationship between the powerful and powerless, bound together in life—and in death. Together they make up a vivid portrait of a feudal world rarely brought alive in the English language. Sensuous, graceful, melancholy, In Other Rooms, Other Wonders gives you Pakistan as you have never seen it. It marks the debut of an amazing new talent.

"This book is not intended to be a comprehensive history of science in the British colonies of North America and the early years of the new nation, or a catalogue of all maps and charts compiled, surveys executed, or instruments made, or indeed a listing of the names of all engaged in these activities. It provides at most an overview of how the practical sciences were required and how they were utilized--with which and for what by whom"--Preface (pg. vii).

Move Over, Buffy! Tinker Not Only Kicks Supernatural Butt Shes a Techie Genius, Too! Inventor, girl genius Tinker lives in a near-future Pittsburgh which now exists mostly in the land of the elves. She runs her salvage business, pays her taxes, and tries to keep the local ambient level of magic down with gadgets of her own design. When a pack of wargs chase an Elven noble into her scrap yard, life as she knows it takes a serious detour. Tinker finds herself taking on the Elven court, the NSA, the Elven Interdimensional Agency, technology smugglers and a college-minded Xenobiologist as she tries to stay focused on whats really important her first date. Armed with an intelligence the size of a planet, steel toed boots, and a junk yard dog attitude, Tinker is ready to kick butt to get her first kiss. At the publisher's request, this title is sold without DRM (Digital Rights Management). "Each and every character is fascinating, extraordinarily well-developed, and gets right under your skin. . . . A terrific, memorable story." ¾Julie E. Czerneda, author of In the Company of Others "Spencer takes her readers on a fast-paced journey into disbelief. [Her] timing is impeccable and the denouement stunning." ¾Romantic Times (four-star review) "This novel [Alien Taste] is keeper-shelf material." ¾BookBrowser "Wonderfully inventive . . . a fun protagonist." ¾Locus

Journey back to the rain-soaked streets of Galway, Ireland, as we rejoin our profoundly flawed yet deeply relatable protagonist, Jack Taylor. Taylor, an acclaimed private investigator, is back in town with dreams of a sober life already fading in the rearview mirror. Despite fresh promises, he soon succumbs to the lure of old habits–an affinity for alcohol and illicit substances pulling him back into a foggy haze. The real world, with its stark reality and desolate truths, is something he would rather escape. This captivating tale of self-destruction and unflinching realism strikes a resonant chord that echoes the somber notes of noir fiction. Just when you think Jack's downward spiral is irreversible, a chance encounter propels him back into the fray. Tasked with a seemingly insurmountable quest, Jack comes face-to-face with a mirror of his own life, filled with grief, determination, and inescapable rage. A thrilling journey of suspense and intrigue, The Killing of the Tinkers will leave readers awash in the thrill of crime fiction, making them question the fine line between good and bad in a world devoid of sense.

The history of Irish Travellers is not analogous to that of the 'tinker', a Europe-wide underworld fantasy created by sixteenth-century British and continental Rogue Literature that came to be seen as an Irish character alone as English became dominant in Ireland. By the Revival, the tinker represented bohemian, pre-Celtic aboriginality, functioning as the cultural nationalist counter to the Victorian Gypsy mania. Long misunderstood as a portrayal of actual Travellers, J.M. Synge's influential The Tinker's Wedding was pivotal to this 'Irishing' of the tinker, even as it acknowledged that figure's cosmopolitan textual roots. Synge's empathetic depiction is closely examined, as are the many subsequent representations that looked to him as a model to subvert or emulate. In contrast to their Revival-era romanticization, post-independence writing portrayed tinkers as alien interlopers, while contemporaneous Unionists labelled them a contaminant from the hostile South. However, after Travellers politicized in the 1960s, more even-handed depictions heralded a querying of the 'tinker' fantasy that has shaped contemporary screen and literary representations of Travellers and has prompted Traveller writers to transubstantiate Otherness into the empowering rhetoric of ethnic difference. Though its Irish equivalent has oscillated between idealization and demonization, US racial history facilitates the cinematic figuring of the Irish-American Traveler as lovable 'white trash' rogue. This process is informed by the mythology of a population with whom Travelers are allied in the white American imagination, the Scots-Irish (Ulster-Scots). In short, the 'tinker' is much more central to Irish, Northern Irish and even Irish-American identity than is currently recognised.

The quintessential insider's account of network television, from the man who founded the industry's most successful independent production company, MTM Enterprises, then rescued a struggling NBC. Leaving an indelible imprint on American TV, Tinker's triumphs, including The Mary Tyler Moore Show, proved that profitability need not preclude quality programming. Photos.