Pull up a barstool at the moe.Republic Hotel and laugh with the rest of us, as the lives and legends of the enchanted Lost Kingdom of Moose Harbor, Maine, spring to life. This surprisingly imaginative and hilarious Pulitzer Prize contending debut novel follows the trials and tribulations of the hotel's proprietor, the affable yet bungling, brother John. In letters to his brother Rob, reluctant investor and bass player for the real-life rock band moe., John weaves a series of interconnected stories filled with misadventure, haunting tales, and unforgettable characters. Tales from the moe. Republic is part folktale, part comic travelogue, and a hundred percent old Yankee humor...
NEW YORK TIMES BUSINESS BEST SELLER • A suspenseful behind-the-scenes look at the dysfunction that contributed to one of the worst tragedies in modern aviation: the 2018 and 2019 crashes of the Boeing 737 MAX. An "authoritative, gripping and finely detailed narrative that charts the decline of one of the great American companies" (New York Times Book Review), from the award-winning reporter for Bloomberg. Boeing is a century-old titan of industry. It played a major role in the early days of commercial flight, World War II bombing missions, and moon landings. The planemaker remains a cornerstone of the U.S. economy, as well as a linchpin in the awesome routine of modern air travel. But in 2018 and 2019, two crashes of the Boeing 737 MAX 8 killed 346 people. The crashes exposed a shocking pattern of malfeasance, leading to the biggest crisis in the company’s history—and one of the costliest corporate scandals ever. How did things go so horribly wrong at Boeing? Flying Blind is the definitive exposé of the disasters that transfixed the world. Drawing from exclusive interviews with current and former employees of Boeing and the FAA; industry executives and analysts; and family members of the victims, it reveals how a broken corporate culture paved the way for catastrophe. It shows how in the race to beat the competition and reward top executives, Boeing skimped on testing, pressured employees to meet unrealistic deadlines, and convinced regulators to put planes into service without properly equipping them or their pilots for flight. It examines how the company, once a treasured American innovator, became obsessed with the bottom line, putting shareholders over customers, employees, and communities. By Bloomberg investigative journalist Peter Robison, who covered Boeing as a beat reporter during the company’s fateful merger with McDonnell Douglas in the late ‘90s, this is the story of a business gone wildly off course. At once riveting and disturbing, it shows how an iconic company fell prey to a win-at-all-costs mentality, threatening an industry and endangering countless lives.
A collection of short stories by an acclaimed contemporary Greek writer, reminiscent of Lydia Davis and Jenny Offill This collection assembles sixteen of Maria Mitsora’s short stories in what adds up to be a retrospective of the author’s work, spanning forty years. Moving across the urban netherworld of Athens to imagined Latin American towns and science-fiction dystopias, Mitsora animates the alternatingly dark and revelatory aspects of the human psyche, depicting a world in which her protagonists are caught between reality and myth, predestination and chance, rationality and twisted dreams. Mitsora led a generation of writers whose work articulated major transitions in the Greek literary scene, from 1970s historical and political sensibilities shaped in response to the military Junta to a contemporary focus on a fragmented, multicultural world. Her consistent experimentation with the short story form—a dominant genre in Greek prose writing since the nineteenth century—ranges from psychologically dark, surrealist work to more recent reflective and poetic writings.
What makes a story a story? What is style? What’s the connection between realism and real life? These are some of the questions James Wood answers in How Fiction Works, the first book-length essay by the preeminent critic of his generation. Ranging widely—from Homer to David Foster Wallace, from What Maisie Knew to Make Way for Ducklings—Wood takes the reader through the basic elements of the art, step by step. The result is nothing less than a philosophy of the novel—plainspoken, funny, blunt—in the traditions of E. M. Forster’s Aspects of the Novel and Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style. It sums up two decades of insight with wit and concision. It will change the way you read.
The Bones of Lazarus follows intersecting lives on the war-torn Caribbean Island of Saint George. Amidst rising acts of terror and horrific bombings, surfaces a savage killer, a war correspondent whose stories have become oddly prophetic, a Russian operative with a past, and a mysterious political plot. Is it more than a coincidence? At its epicenter, Captain Daniel Loomis, fighting for his sanity and survival, seeks a connection. Yet, he cannot stop the growing fear that a creature of legend has arrived-the immortal Lazarus. Resurrected with a terrifying power, it's claimed he's walked the earth for 2,000 years seeking the hearts and souls of the wicked-leaving his mark-the face of petrified evil-upon his victims. As political intrigue and conspiracy unravel around him, Captain Loomis is charged with finding the killer. But first he must come to terms with whether he pursues a man, a myth, or the original Frankenstein monster in this imaginative, darkly funny, supernatural thriller.
Massacres, mayhem, and mischief fill the pages of Outlaw Tales of South Dakota. Ride with horse thieves and cattle rustlers, stagecoach, and train robbers. Duck the bullets of murderers, plot strategies with con artists, hiss at lawmen turned outlaws. A refreshing new perspective on some of the most infamous reprobates of the Great Plains.
Here is a treasury of favorite and little known tales from Africa, Asia, Europe, the Americas, Australia, and Oceania, gracefully retold and accompanied by fascinating, detailed information of their historic and cultural backgrounds. The introduction provides an informative overview of folklore, its purpose in world cultures and in contemporary society and popular culture. Following this, the main sections of the book are arranged by tale type, covering wonder tales, hero tales, tales of kindness repaid and hope and redemption, and finally tales of fools and wise people. Each section begins by comparing the tales cross-culturally, explaining similarities and differences in the folkloric narratives. Tales from diverse cultures are then presented, introduced, and retold in a highly readable fashion.
Until the recent uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa, the resilience of authoritarian regimes seemed a fundamental feature of regional politics. While economic, political, and internal security policies are most often considered in discussions of regime maintenance, Laurie Brand introduces a new factor, that of national narratives. Portrayals of a country's founding, identity, and bases of unity can be a powerful strategy in sustaining a ruling elite. Brand argues that such official stories, which are used to reinforce the right to rule, justify policies, or combat opponents, deserve careful exploration if we are to understand the full range of tools available to respond to crises that threaten a leadership's hold on power. Brand examines more than six decades of political, economic, and military challenges in two of North Africa's largest countries: Egypt and Algeria. Through a careful analysis of various texts—history and religion textbooks, constitutions, national charters, and presidential speeches—Official Stories demonstrates how leaderships have attempted to reconfigure narratives to confront challenges to their power. Brand's account also demonstrates how leaderships may miscalculate, thereby setting in motion opposition forces beyond their control.
