Part ethnography, part cultural study, this text examines the lives of teenage girls from the world of the Long Island, New York, middle school in order to explore how standards of normalcy define gender, exercise power, and reinforce the cultural practices of whiteness.

A stunning tale of suburbia's darker underbelly by the critically acclaimed author of I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone, Stephanie Keuhnert. Ballads are the kind of songs that Kara McNaughton likes best. Not the clichéd ones where a diva hits her dramatic high note or a rock band tones it down a couple of notches for the ladies, but the true ballads: the punk rocker or the country crooner reminding their listeners of the numerous ways to screw things up. In high school, Kara helped maintain the "Stories of Suburbia" notebook, which contained newspaper articles about bizarre, tragic events from suburbs all over America, and personal vignettes that Kara dubbed "ballads" written by her friends in Oak Park, just outside of Chicago. But Kara never wrote her own ballad. Before she could figure out what her song was about, she left town suddenly at the end of her junior year. Now, four years later, Kara returns to her hometown to face the music, needing to revisit the disastrous events that led to her leaving, in order to move on with her life. Intensely powerful and utterly engaging, Ballads of Suburbia explores the heartbreaking moments when life changes unexpectedly, and reveals the consequences of being forced to grow up too soon.

Amanda’s husband has just traded her in for an affair with a teenybopper. Brooke is a trophy wife collecting dust. And Candace (Don’t call me Candy) has had too many husbands and too little love. What do these three unlikely accomplices have in common besides a Little League team called the Mudhens? A plot to reclaim a little r-e-s-p-e-c-t. And they’re going to do it with a mop and a bucket. Maid for You starts as a way for Amanda to make enough money to keep the roof over her kids’ heads after her husband splits for his midlife crisis. But when Candace and Brooke join her, it becomes much more. Donning disguises, they enter the homes of those who once spurned them and discover more than just clutter in the closets of their neighbors’ otherwise tidy lives. But when Amanda takes on the job of cleaning the home of the town’s most eligible hunk, someone decides to do her dirty. Now Amanda, Brooke, and Candace are on a mission to prove that being single in suburbia isn’t a crime–even if it does lead to some irresistible temptations….

Winner of the Whitbread Prize for Best First Novel "There was one copy going round our school like contraband. I read it in one sitting ... I'd never read a book about anyone remotely like me before."-- Zadie Smith "My name is Karim Amir, and I am an Englishman born and bred, almost..." The hero of Hanif Kureishi's debut novel is dreamy teenager Karim, desperate to escape suburban South London and experience the forbidden fruits which the 1970s seem to offer. When the unlikely opportunity of a life in the theatre announces itself, Karim starts to win the sort of attention he has been craving - albeit with some rude and raucous results. With the publication of Buddha of Suburbia, Hanif Kureishi landed into the literary landscape as a distinct new voice and a fearless taboo-breaking writer. The novel inspired a ground-breaking BBC series featuring a soundtrack by David Bowie.

ONE OF THE ATLANTIC’S GREAT AMERICAN NOVELS OF THE PAST 100 YEARS The debut novel from critically acclaimed and New York Times–bestselling author of On Such a Full Sea and My Year Abroad. In Native Speaker, author Chang-rae Lee introduces readers to Henry Park. Park has spent his entire life trying to become a true American—a native speaker. But even as the essence of his adopted country continues to elude him, his Korean heritage seems to drift further and further away. Park's harsh Korean upbringing has taught him to hide his emotions, to remember everything he learns, and most of all to feel an overwhelming sense of alienation. In other words, it has shaped him as a natural spy. But the very attributes that help him to excel in his profession put a strain on his marriage to his American wife and stand in the way of his coming to terms with his young son's death. When he is assigned to spy on a rising Korean-American politician, his very identity is tested, and he must figure out who he is amid not only the conflicts within himself but also within the ethnic and political tensions of the New York City streets. Native Speaker is a story of cultural alienation. It is about fathers and sons, about the desire to connect with the world rather than stand apart from it, about loyalty and betrayal, about the alien in all of us and who we finally are.

‘I think what Darren’s really good at, is that he sort of understands other people. Sometimes, even if I don’t say anything, he seems to know what I’m feeling anyway.’ Cassie’s face lit up. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That’s what I think too. That’s exactly what I think...’ ROLAND lives with his parents, Graham and Joyce, and his younger sister, Lily, in the golden light of an outer suburb— Glenella. He dreams of escaping, of finding an intoxicating life somewhere else. He is in love with Cassie Noble, the daughter of his parents’ friends Reg and Colleen. But when Darren Wilson moves into the neighbourhood and attracts the interest of both teens, a conflict emerges that threatens the friendship between the two families. Following his acclaimed debut, The Vintage and the Gleaning, Jeremy Chambers’ new novel, Suburbia, is a revelation: a coming-of-age drama about the end of innocence set in a hidden world of paling fences and fragrant lawns, amid the flickering light of memory and desire. Jeremy Chambers' first novel, The Vintage and the Gleaning, was shortlisted for the Australian/Vogel Literary Award and the Colin Roderick Award and longlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and the Quebec Booksellers’ Award. His short fiction has been published in Griffith REVIEW, Higher Arc, Review of Australian Fiction and The White Review. ‘The author’s achievement is to paint the neon-hued, big-haired, acid-washed landscape of the 80s in Australia wth Heidelberg School exquisiteness, and in doing so he brings an oddly formal, grave, elegiac air to a moment and a world that seems shallow and silly in retrospect...the effect can be miraculous, a transfiguration of the commonplace.’ Australian ‘Chambers’s writing feels fresh and his descriptive language renders Glenella in sombre beauty.’ Books+Publishing ‘Suburbia, Chambers’s second novel after the much-praised The Vintage and the Gleaning, adds another voice to a welcome wave of Australian fiction that re-evaluates family life at the end of the 20th century, a time just close enough to make readers feel rather uncomfortable without quite causing us to look away.’ Saturday Paper ‘Anyone who has read Puberty Blues or seen the excellent TV series of the same name will find echoes of it here in Chambers’s evocation of his teenage years in Australia. His gritty description of underage sex, drug taking, petty crime and mindless violence is interspersed with lyrical writing in stark contrast to the backdrop of an aimless existence in a dull suburb...Cleverly crafted and highly recommended.’ New Zealand Herald ‘Chambers has an uncanny ability for writing evocatively of a sun drenched time and place—Small town. Big consequences. Recommended.’ North & South NZ ‘Chambers has written a coming-of-age story that is bleak, but beautifully, slowly, meditatively well observed and written, painted and polished, and remembered...It’s adolescence in all its glory.’ Sydney Morning Herald ‘Chambers has an uncanny ability for writing evocatively of a sun-drenched time and place where he too “came of age”.’ North & South ‘Reading Suburbia is like finding out the backstory to a Henson photo; small events that unfold in darkness are revealed to the light.’ Good Reading

THE SUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLER SHORTLISTED FOR THE PENDERYN MUSIC BOOK PRIZE 'Tender, wise and funny' Sunday Express 'Beautifully observed, deadly funny' Max Porter Before becoming an acclaimed musician and writer, Tracey Thorn was a typical teenager: bored and cynical, despairing of her aspirational parents. Her only comfort came from house parties and the female pop icons who hinted at a new kind of living. Returning to the scene of her childhood, Thorn takes us beyond the bus shelters, the pub car parks and the weekly discos, to the parents who wanted so much for their children and the children who wanted none of it. With great wit and insight, Thorn reconsiders the Green Belt post-war dream so many artists have mocked, and yet so many artists have come from.