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The Trick is to Keep Breathing is the first novel from the writer Janice Galloway. It was first published in the United Kingdom by Polygon in 1989. The novel won the MIND/Allen Lane Book of the Year and was also shortlisted for both the Whitbread First Novel and Scottish First Book awards.
The novel's protagonist and narrator. She is 27 years old. She lives on a council estate on the outskirts of Irvine, North Ayrshire, not far from the dilapidated cottage she owns. She is a drama teacher, and works part-time at a bookmakers. She is anorexic, and possibly as a consequence no longer menstruates. She voraciously reads women's magazines. She is an alcoholic. Throughout the novel she tries to find the "trick" to keep living on.
Joy's friend who is also a teacher. For the duration of the novel she is teaching in Kentucky, USA. She regularly writes to Joy.
The mother of Marianne. She lives alone in a house too large for one person. She loves to cook, and equates food with happiness.
He was the husband of Norma Fisher, and Joy's lover. He drowned in a swimming pool in Spain when on holiday with Joy before the novel's own timeline. His death is retold throughout the novel in italicized text.
Joy's ex-boyfriend. Childhood sweethearts, they were together for seven years.
An ex-student of Joy's school where she teaches. Partner in Joy's affair while with Paul. Currently in college David returns after Michael's death and from then on spontaneously calls and visits Joy usually resulting in sex.
Joy's boss at her part-time job. He calls her on a semi-regular basis to take her out to various events, usually resulting in Tony forcing himself on Joy.
Joy's sister. She is twenty-three years older than Joy and they do not have anything in common - Joy is frightened of her since she used to abuse her as a child, perhaps due to having a miscarriage around the same time as Joy was born.
Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold is a 1956 novel by C. S. Lewis. It is a retelling of Cupid and Psyche, based on its telling in a chapter of The Golden Ass of Apuleius. This story had haunted Lewis all his life, because he realized that some of the main characters' actions were illogical. As a consequence, his retelling of the story is characterized by a highly developed character, the narrator, with the reader being drawn into her reasoning and her emotions. This was his last novel, and he considered it his most mature, written in conjunction with his wife, Joy Davidman.
Charlotte's Web is a book of children's literature by American author E. B. White and illustrated by Garth Williams; it was published on October 15, 1952, by Harper & Brothers. The novel tells the story of a livestock pig named Wilbur and his friendship with a barn spider named Charlotte. When Wilbur is in danger of being slaughtered by the farmer, Charlotte writes messages praising Wilbur in her web in order to persuade the farmer to let him live.
The Boxcar Children is a children's book series originally created and written by the American first-grade school teacher Gertrude Chandler Warner. Today, the series includes nearly 160 titles, with more being released every year. The series is aimed at readers in grades 2–6.
Bridge to Terabithia is a novel written by Katherine Paterson, about two children named Leslie and Jesse who create a magical forest kingdom in their imaginations. The book was originally published in 1977 by Thomas Crowell, and in 1978, it won the Newbery Medal. Paterson drew inspiration for the novel from a real event that occurred in August 1974 when her son’s friend was struck dead by lightning.
Mary Gladys Webb was an English romance novelist and poet of the early 20th century, whose work is set chiefly in the Shropshire countryside and among Shropshire characters and people whom she knew. Her novels have been successfully dramatized, most notably the film Gone to Earth in 1950 by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger based on the novel of the same title. The novels are thought to have inspired the famous parody Cold Comfort Farm (1932) by Stella Gibbons.
One Hundred Years of Solitude is a 1967 novel by Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez that tells the multi-generational story of the Buendía family, whose patriarch, José Arcadio Buendía, founded the (fictitious) town of Macondo. The novel is often cited as one of the supreme achievements in literature.
The Pigman is a young adult novel written by Paul Zindel, published in 1968. It is notable for its authentic depiction of teenagers, and was among the first YA books to take the genre in a more realistic direction.
Never Let Me Go is a 2005 dystopian science fiction novel by British author Kazuo Ishiguro. It was shortlisted for the 2005 Booker Prize, for the 2006 Arthur C. Clarke Award and for the 2005 National Book Critics Circle Award. Time magazine named it the best novel of 2005 and included the novel in its "100 Best English-language novels published since 1923—the beginning of TIME". It also received an ALA Alex Award in 2006. A film adaptation directed by Mark Romanek was released in 2010; a Japanese television drama aired in 2016.
Sweet Valley High is a series of young adult novels attributed to American author Francine Pascal, who presided over a team of ghostwriters to produce the series. The books chronicle the lives of identical twins Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield, who live in the fictional Sweet Valley, California, a suburb near Los Angeles. The twins and their friends attend Sweet Valley High.
Dean Koontz's Frankenstein is the collective title of five novels co-written by Dean Koontz. Though technically of the mystery or thriller genres, the novels also feature the trappings of horror, fantasy, and science fiction.
The Westing Game is a mystery book written by Ellen Raskin and published by Dutton in 1978. It won the Newbery Medal recognizing the year's most distinguished contribution to American children's literature.
The Princess Diaries is a series of epistolary young adult novels written by Meg Cabot, and is also the title of the first volume, published in 2000. The series revolves around Amelia 'Mia' Thermopolis, a teenager in New York who discovers that she is the princess of a small European principality called Genovia. The series follows Mia's life throughout high school in the 2000s and juggling regular teenage life with being a royal princess. The books are noted for containing many popular culture references from the 2000s that influence some of the plot.
Possessing the Secret of Joy is a 1992 novel by Alice Walker.
Half of a Yellow Sun is a novel by Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Published in 2006 by 4th Estate in London, the novel tells the story of the Biafran War through the perspective of the characters Olanna, Ugwu, and Richard.
Nightschool: The Weirn Books is a supernatural original English-language manga written and illustrated by Svetlana Chmakova. The chapters appear as a serial in the monthly manga magazine Yen Plus, which collects the chapters in bound volumes. The first was released in April 2009.
The Summer I Turned Pretty is a trilogy of young adult romance novels written by American author Jenny Han, and published by Simon & Schuster. The series includes The Summer I Turned Pretty (2009), It's Not Summer Without You (2010), and We'll Always Have Summer (2011).
Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined is a young adult vampire-romance novel by Stephenie Meyer. The story is a gender-swapped retelling of the first book in the Twilight series, and introduces Beau Swan and Edythe Cullen in place of Bella and Edward. The book was originally published on October 6, 2015 as part of an "oversized flip-book pairing" with Twilight to celebrate the original novel's tenth anniversary. An audiobook (CD) was released by Penguin Random House on the same day.
The Big Green Tent is a novel by Russian novelist and short story writer Lyudmila Ulitskaya. It was published in Russian in 2010 and was translated into English by Polly Gannon in 2015.