Frankie's Place - A Love Story

Jim Sterba

Summary

“A joy to read—a portrait of a place, a way of life, and a marriage by a reporter who turns out to be the world’s last extant romantic.” —Joan Didion   In this Tracy-Hepburn romance, a sophisticated New York intellectual is charmed by a down-to-earth newspaperman. Frankie’s Place is the tale of a summer cottage and the story that unfolds under its roof. Jim Sterba is the down-to-earth newspaperman who charms the New York sophisticate, Frances FitzGerald, after several visits to her writer’s retreat on the coast in Maine. Frankie’s place is a secluded little house out of harm’s way and the clamor of the modern world. Icy plunges into the Somes Sound christen their island mornings; then there is a long period of dutiful writing followed, in the late afternoon, by rigorous mountain walks, forays for wild mushrooms, and sailing. In the evenings Jim and Frankie prepare simple island meals as they talk about everything from the stories or books they’re working on to the bigger issue of Jim’s reunion with his long-lost father. Although they couldn’t have had more disparate childhoods—Jim grew up on a struggling Michigan farm while Frankie lived in a Manhattan town house and an English country estate—their shared summer rituals have them falling in love before our eyes.   “A highly entertaining tale of love, family, and place . . . It took me places I hadn’t expected to go. I loved it.” —Tom Brokaw

Available since: 12/01/2007.

Print length: 288 pages.

Other books that might interest you

The Unexpected Guest - How a...

Michael Konik

A heartwarming memoir of a couple who takes in a homeless man and the life-altering effect the experience has on all three of them. For years, “Fisher King Mike” wandered L.A., preaching to his people. On occasion he’d share an open mic night with Michael Konik, who offered a curious and sympathetic ear, particularly when the Fisher King lamented his separation from his wife (who he claimed was Selena Gomez). As the pair began to trust one another, confusion and distance gave way to something that astounded them both.The Unexpected Guest gives love profound new dimensions with its story of family, friendship, and the meaning of home. Konik offered food and a pair of pants when his new friend came by, and wondered how much he owed the troubled Fisher King―a question all of America faces with the nation’s ongoing homelessness crisis. When Konik and his wife gave Fisher King Mike a place in their home, handy as he turned out to be with household projects, they witnessed a guest become a caretaker. Gone was the man who gave sermons about his supposed estate next door to Kanye West. Gone was the man drifting through life. What each never saw coming was their own transformation and the lessons they’d learn about what it means not only to be good people, but simply to be human.Praise for The Unexpected Guest “Heartwarming, compassionate, and well-crafted, The Unexpected Guest gives voice to those rarely heard, compels you to look closer when you want to look away, and reveals the joy of caring for others.” ―Pete Earley, New York Times–bestselling author of Crazy: A Father’s Search Through America’s Mental Health Madness, 2007 Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize “What a pleasure to read a book that is quick in pace, absent of cynicism, and packed with conversations and stories we desperately need. The Unexpected Guest exceeded my already high expectations. Michael Konik does something that few journalists, let alone politicians even attempt to do. He humanizes the people who are without shelter. I won’t be soon forgetting “Fisher King Mike.”“―Dave Zirin, The Nation “A deft meditation on the ordinary magic that happens when you open your heart and home, one small step at a time. Poignant, timely, compulsively readable. Konik’s story of family lingers long after the last page.” ―Jack McCallum, New York Times–bestselling author of Dream Team “Honest and entertaining, this book forces readers to confront the systems of inequality in which we are all implicated.” ―Kirkus Reviews

Show book

Madame Clairevoyant's Guide to...

Claire Comstock-Gay

“Not just a shimmering guide to our personal cosmologies written in precise and lucid prose, this book is also a devastating collection of cultural-criticism essays cum meditations on the very nature of being alive.”—Emma Copley Eisenberg, author of The Third Rainbow Girl 
A soulful exploration of the twelve astrological signs embodied by our living “stars”—from divas to philosophers, poets to punks—and the ways they can help us better understand ourselves and each other, from the wildly popular astrology columnist for New York magazine’s The Cut. 
Whether you believe in it or not, astrology’s job has never been to give us a preordained vision of the future, nor to sort us into twelve neat personality types, but to provide the tools and language for delving into our weirdest, best, most thorny contradictions, and for understanding ourselves and each other in our full complexity. The stars and the planets then are more like mirrors that show us who we are, that give us an understanding of how to be and how to move through the world; how certain people do it differently, and what we can learn by studying them. 
In Madame Clairevoyant’s Guide to the Stars, Claire Comstock-Gay brings the sky down to Earth and points to our popular “stars”—from Aretha Franklin to Mr. Rogers, from poets in Cancer to punk singers in Scorpio—to reveal what the sky has to teach us about being human. In this wise, lyrically written guide, she examines the twelve astrological signs, illuminating the ways each one is more complicated, beautiful, and surprising than you might have been told. Claire suggests that actually it’s okay, and even important, to be a seeker, to hunger for self-knowledge, and if astrology is the vehicle for that inquiry, so be it. 
Madame Clairevoyant’s Guide to the Stars offers a clear introduction to the basics and an innovative new framework for creatively using astrology to illuminate our lives on earth. It’s a road map to our internal world, yes, but Claire also reminds us that it’s still our job to navigate it. Combining both heavenly insights and the earthly wisdom of writers like Cheryl Strayed and Heather Havrilesky and the poetry of Patricia Lockwood and Mary Oliver, Madame Clairevoyant’s Guide to the Stars offers a fresh, profound, and fun way to look at ourselves and others, and perhaps see each more clearly. And in that way, this book is not just beautiful, but transformative.  
If you're looking for a spiritual guide to help you navigate life's ups and downs, this book is an excellent choice, offering practical advice and insights that will help you find inner peace and happiness. 
HarperCollins 2024

Show book

Memoirs of a Rebel - Black...

Kon Georgiou

As Kon Georgiou sits in his Supermax (HRMU) cell one night, he recalls the last two years prior to the shooting. He goes from a life of drugs, girls, partying, loyalty and brotherhood to a life behind bars in one of Australia's hardest prisons. This book will give you a rare glimpse into club culture in Australia and the complete course of events that took place in the cellar of the Black Market Cafe in November 1997, where three high-ranking member of the Bandidos Motorcycle Club were shot dead by two Rebels MC members. KG opens up a door into bike-club culture neber before seen, in order to somehow show his part in keeping the culture alive in the readers' minds by sharing his thoughts and experience as a Rebels MC member.

Show book

My Son The Killer - The Untold...

Brian Whitney, Anna Yourkin

An intimate look at the internet killer featured in the Netflix true crime documentary Don’t F**k with Cats—written with the murderer’s mother.   In 2012, male escort and porn actor Luka Magnotta found a gruesome path to fame. He videotaped himself murdering and dismembering Chinese student Jun Lin before posting the video online. After mailing Jun’s hands and feet to elementary schools, Luca led Interpol on a manhunt that ended in Berlin. They arrested him at an Internet café where he was reading news stories about himself.   Now with a legion of twisted fans, Magnotta was brought back to Canada, convicted of first-degree murder, and sentenced to prison. During this time, Anna Yourkin, his estranged mother, troubled by Magnotta’s abused childhood and her role in it, reconnected with her killer son.   With exclusive interviews, Magnotta has given award-winning journalist Brian Whitney an intimate look inside the mind of this “social media” killer. Joining Whitney to tell this unique true crime story is Anna Yourkin, who provides exclusive photos.

Show book

The Tomb in Seville - Crossing...

Norman Lewis

An account by “the finest travel writer of the last century” of his journey through 1930s Spain in search of an ancestral tomb (The New Yorker). In the 1930s, Norman Lewis and his brother-in-law, Eugene Corvaja, journeyed to Spain to visit the family’s ancestral tomb in Seville. Seventy years later, with evocative and engrossing prose, Lewis recounts the trip, taken on the brink of the Spanish Civil War. Witnesses to the changing political climate and culture, Lewis and Corvaja travel through the countryside from Madrid to Seville by bus, car, train, and on foot, encountering many surprises along the way. Dodging the skirmishes that will later erupt into war, they immerse themselves in the local culture and landscape, marveling at the many enchantments of Spain during this pivotal time in its history.

Show book

The Prince Who Would Be King

Sarah Fraser

Henry Stuart’s life is the last great forgotten Jacobean tale. Shadowed by the gravity of the Thirty Years’ War and the huge changes taking place across Europe in seventeenth-century society, economy, politics and empire, his life was visually and verbally gorgeous.NOW THE SUBJECT OF BBC2 DOCUMENTARY The Best King We Never Had
Henry Stuart, Prince of Wales was once the hope of Britain. Eldest son to James VI of Scotland, James I of England, Henry was the epitome of heroic Renaissance princely virtue, his life set against a period about as rich and momentous as any.
Educated to rule, Henry was interested in everything. His court was awash with leading artists, musicians, writers and composers such as Ben Jonson and Inigo Jones. He founded a royal art collection of European breadth, amassed a vast collection of priceless books, led grand renovations of royal palaces and mounted operatic, highly politicised masques.
But his ambitions were even greater. He embraced cutting-edge science, funded telescopes and automata, was patron of the NorthWest Passage Company and wanted to sail through the barriers of the known world to explore new continents. He reviewed and modernised Britain’s naval and military capacity and in his advocacy for the colonisation of North America he helped to transform the world.
At his death aged only eighteen, and considering himself to be as much a European as British, he was preparing to stake his claim to be the next leader of Protestant Christendom in the struggle to resist a resurgent militant Catholicism.
In this rich and lively book, Sarah Fraser seeks to restore Henry to his place in history. Set against the bloody traumas of the Thirty Years’ War, the writing of the King James Bible, the Gunpowder Plot and the dark tragedies pouring from Shakespeare’s quill, Henry’s life is the last great forgotten Jacobean tale: the story of a man who, had he lived, might have saved Britain from King Charles I, his spaniels and the Civil War with its appalling loss of life his misrule engendered.
This historical biography of Henry Stuart, penned by Sarah Fraser, is a top pick for those interested in the intricacies of Jacobean society. The Prince Who Would Be King is not just an autobiography, but a vivid exploration of a time when science, art, and politics intertwined in the most fascinating ways.
For fans of Philippa Langley (The Princes in the Tower), Alison Weir (Elizabeth, the Queen), and Anna Keay (The Restless Republic).

Show book