THE PENAL COLONY - SECOND HAND

New York: A city that inspires. A city that draws people in. A city where everyone is watching, waiting to see what will happen next.

1967. Robert Mapplethorpe knows he is an artist. From his childhood home in Queens he yearns for the heat and excitement of the city, the press of other people's bodies. He wants to be watched, he wants to be known.

1891. Walt Whitman has already found fame, and has settled into his own sort of old age. Still childlike, still passionate, he travels with his friend and biographer Bucke to the city he has always adored, the scene of his greatest triumphs and rejections.

1922. Robert Moses is a man with a vision. Standing on the edge of Long Island he knows what it could become. Walking down a street in Brooklyn he sees its future. He is the man who will build modern New York.

2013. Edmund White is back in New York. It's the city of his youth, of his life and loves. He remembers days of lazy pleasure, nights of ecstasy and euphoria. But years have gone by since then.

Everyone is Watching is a novel about the men and women who have defined New York. Through the lives and perspectives of these great creators, artists and thinkers, and through other iconic works of art that capture its essence, New York itself solidifies. Complex, rich, sordid, tantalizing, it is constantly changing and evolving. Both intimate and epic in its sweep, Everyone is Watching is a love letter to New York and its people - past, present and future.

"Bradbury’s writing is beautiful: unusual, intoxicating and bold. I may have been sceptical at the start, but I finished Everyone Is Watching on a high." —The Guardian

Written with beauty and grace, award-winning author Shelley Bates pens the compelling story about the unstoppable force of the emergent self.

Dinah Traynell is trapped in a life that is not her own. Raised in a toxic church, she is forced to surrender mentally and physically to her sociopathic pastor’s every demand. Even while mourning the loss of her father, Dinah must hold strong to this role she’s reluctantly played all her life. And though she dreams of escape, this is the only world she’s ever known. When Dr. Matthew Nicholas appears on Dinah’s doorstep in the dark of night, he’s burdened with troubles of his own. Leaving behind his university position, Matthew has been traveling to escape the trauma of his old life--that is, until he’s robbed of what means he has left for his journey. Stranded, penniless, and still ill-at-ease with his life’s turn of events, he’d rather lend a helping hand on a stranger’s ranch than go home. Instantly drawn to Dinah, Matthew is torn between his desire to help her and the fear of getting too involved. But as Dinah struggles with the realization that the faith she grew up believing in is not real, and an abandoned baby is unexpectedly dropped into their lives, they must learn to open up and trust one another--if either ever hopes to break free of the past.

The Feast of Love is a sumptuous work of fiction about the thing that most distracts and delights us. In a re-imagined A Midsummer Night's Dream, men and women speak of and desire their ideal mates; parents seek out their lost children; adult children try to come to terms with their own parents and, in some cases, find new ones.

In vignettes both comic and sexy, the owner of a coffee shop recalls the day his first wife seemed to achieve a moment of simple perfection, while she remembers the women's softball game during which she was stricken by the beauty of the shortstop. A young couple spends hours at the coffee shop fueling the idea of their fierce love. A professor of philosophy, stopping by for a cup of coffee, makes a valiant attempt to explain what he knows to be the inexplicable workings of the human heart Their voices resonate with each other—disparate people joined by the meanderings of love—and come together in a tapestry that depicts the most irresistible arena of life.

Written with warmth and humor as a series of letters, this novel is a celebration of the written word in all its guises, and of finding connection in the most surprising ways. “I wonder how the book got to Guernsey? Perhaps there is some sort of secret homing instinct in books that brings them to their perfect readers.” January 1946: London is emerging from the shadow of the Second World War, and writer Juliet Ashton is looking for her next book subject. Who could imagine that she would find it in a letter from a man she’s never met, a native of the island of Guernsey, who has come across her name written inside a book by Charles Lamb…. As Juliet and her new correspondent exchange letters, Juliet is drawn into the world of this man and his friends—and what a wonderfully eccentric world it is. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society—born as a spur-of-the-moment alibi when its members were discovered breaking curfew by the Germans occupying their island—boasts a charming, funny, deeply human cast of characters, from pig farmers to phrenologists, literature lovers all. Juliet begins a remarkable correspondence with the society’s members, learning about their island, their taste in books, and the impact the recent German occupation has had on their lives. Captivated by their stories, she sets sail for Guernsey, and what she finds will change her forever. Written with warmth and humor as a series of letters, this novel is a celebration of the written word in all its guises, and of finding connection in the most surprising ways.