Guinevere Beck, MFA student at New York University, is perhaps known more for her tragic death than for the brightyoung literary voice her work represents. This posthumouscollection for her prose, poetry and memoir is her firstpublication.You used to wrap yourselfin fairy tales like a blanket.But it was the cold youloved.Sharp shivers as youuncoveredthe corpses ofBluebeard's wives...
Nominated for a 34th annual Lambda Literary Award • A scintillating thriller with an emotional punch: “The tension builds to unbearably claustrophobic levels. To say more would rob readers of the 'no, he didn’t' suspense that makes Bath Haus an unexpectedly twisted, heart-pounding cat-versus-mouse thriller" (Los Angeles Times). Oliver Park, a recovering addict from Indiana, finally has everything he ever wanted: sobriety and a loving, wealthy partner in Nathan, a prominent DC trauma surgeon. Despite their difference in age and disparate backgrounds, they've made a perfect life together. With everything to lose, Oliver shouldn't be visiting Haus, a gay bathhouse. But through the entrance he goes, and it's a line crossed. Inside, he follows a man into a private room, and it's the final line. Whatever happens next, Nathan can never know. But then, everything goes wrong, terribly wrong, and Oliver barely escapes with his life. He races home in full-blown terror as the hand-shaped bruise grows dark on his neck. The truth will destroy Nathan and everything they have together, so Oliver does the thing he used to do so well: he lies. What follows is a classic runaway-train narrative, full of the exquisite escalations, edge-of-your-seat thrills, and oh-my-god twists. P. J. Vernon's Bath Haus is perfect for readers curious for their next must-read novel.
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "[A] poetic reckoning of the importance of love in a child's life . . . eloquent and moving."—People "Everything that can be called love -- from shared joy to comfort in the darkness -- is gathered in the pages of this reassuring, refreshingly honest picture book."—The New York Times Book Review, Editors' Choice / Staff Picks From the Book Review “Lyrical and sensitive, ‘Love’ is the sort of book likely to leave readers of all ages a little tremulous, and brimming with feeling.”—The Wall Street Journal From Newbery Medal-winning author Matt de la Peña and bestselling illustrator Loren Long comes a story about the strongest bond there is and the diverse and powerful ways it connects us all. "In the beginning there is light and two wide-eyed figures standing near the foot of your bed and the sound of their voices is love. ... A cab driver plays love softly on his radio while you bounce in back with the bumps of the city and everything smells new, and it smells like life." In this heartfelt celebration of love, Newbery Medal-winning author Matt de la Peña and bestselling illustrator Loren Long depict the many ways we experience this universal bond, which carries us from the day we are born throughout the years of our childhood and beyond. With a lyrical text that's soothing and inspiring, this tender tale is a needed comfort and a new classic that will resonate with readers of every age.
The most celebrated story collection from “one of the true American masters” (The New York Review of Books)—a haunting meditation on love, loss, and companionship, and finding one’s way through the dark that includes the iconic and much-referenced title story featured in the Academy Award-winning film Birdman. "Raymond Carver's America is ... clouded by pain and the loss of dreams, but it is not as fragile as it looks. It is a place of survivors and a place of stories.... [Carver] has done what many of the most gifted writers fail to do: He has invented a country of his own, like no other except that very world, as Wordsworth said, which is the world to all of us." —The New York Times Book Review
It was always at sundown they were seen. In that twilight hour, when the walls between the worlds grew thin, strange things might slip through the cracks. Sometimes then, so the stories went, enchanted islands would appear in the empty ocean to the west of Wildsea.When Utterly Dark was a baby, she was washed up on the shores of the Autumn Isles and taken in by the Watcher of Wildsea. But everything changes when her guardian suddenly drowns. Now who will keep the Watch, and make sure Wildsea stays safe from the strange forces teeming in the deep ocean around them?A magical new story from the bestselling and prize-winning author of Mortal Engines.
Their fun summer together ended and Jay went abroad to study. Eighteen-year-old Rebecca believed Jay when he told her they’d get married when he returned home in a year. But when she sent a letter informing him of her pregnancy and asking for his help, she was heartlessly accused of lying in an attempt to blackmail his distinguished family. Ten years later, she finds a notice in the newspaper looking for her because her mother has fallen ill. She returns to her hometown, and Jay, a man she never thought she would see again, appears in front of her. He looks at her with the same passionate gaze he had in the past, and he’s acting as though he never hurt her!
A woman reporter in a Latin American country and a photographer are sent on a routine assignment. The two uncover a hideous crime, the revelation of which could challenge the terrorism of the military regime.
Spite angers and enrages us, but it also keeps us honest. In this provocative account, a psychologist examines how petty vengeance explains human thriving. Spite seems utterly useless. You don't gain anything by hurting yourself just so you can hurt someone else. So why hasn't evolution weeded out all the spiteful people? As psychologist Simon McCarthy-Jones argues, spite seems pointless because we're looking at it wrong. Spite isn't just what we feel when a car cuts us off or when a partner cheats. It's what we feel when we want to punish a bad act simply because it was bad. Spite is our fairness instinct, an innate resistance to exploitation, and it is one of the building blocks of human civilization. As McCarthy-Jones explains, some of history's most important developments—the rise of religions, governments, and even moral codes—were actually redirections of spiteful impulses. A provocative, engaging read, Spite shows that if you really want to understand what makes us human, you can't just look at noble ideas like altruism and cooperation. You need to understand our darker impulses as well.
Undercover agent Fia McKee returns in The Dark Side of Town, another thrilling mystery by Sasscer Hill and set in the seamy underbelly of horse racing. Fia McKee, now officially employed by the Thoroughbred Racing Protective Bureau (TPRB), is sent undercover to Saratoga Racetrack to investigate Mars Pizutti, a racehorse trainer whose horses’ wins are suspiciously lucky—and lucrative. Fia’s bosses believe Pizutti’s success is based on illegal drugs and deceitful methods, and they want Fia to work inside his barn to ferret out the truth. But after witnessing the tragic and inexplicable suicide of a jockey, Fia discovers the rider’s death is only the tip on an iceberg involving the mob, a crooked racing hedge fund, and threats to the lives of another jockey and his young sister. Fia must find out who’s connected to who, and what shadowy forces are at play before someone else dies.
ONE OF THE MOST LOVED NOVELS OF THE DECADE. A long-lost book reappears, mysteriously connecting an old man searching for his son and a girl seeking a cure for her widowed mother's loneliness. Leo Gursky taps his radiator each evening to let his upstairs neighbor know he’s still alive. But it wasn’t always like this: in the Polish village of his youth, he fell in love and wrote a book…Sixty years later and half a world away, fourteen-year-old Alma, who was named after a character in that book, undertakes an adventure to find her namesake and save her family. With virtuosic skill and soaring imaginative power, Nicole Krauss gradually draws these stories together toward a climax of "extraordinary depth and beauty" (Newsday).