Bess has landed a job at the Razor’s Edge dance club, and she’s invited Nancy to check it out. With a wild young crowd, crazy costumes, and a handsome DJ, it’s the kind of place where anything can happen—and soon does. When the lights go out and someone screams, no one knows what is happening. But as soon as the blackout is over, Nancy makes a shocking discovery: Bess has disappeared!
“Deb Olin Unferth’s stories are so smart, fast, full of heart, and distinctive in voice—each an intense little thought-system going out earnestly in search of strange new truths. What an important and exciting talent.”—George Saunders For more than ten years, Deb Olin Unferth has been publishing startlingly askew, wickedly comic, cutting-edge fiction in magazines such as Granta, Harper’s Magazine, McSweeney’s, NOON, and The Paris Review. Her stories are revered by some of the best American writers of our day, but until now there has been no stand-alone collection of her short fiction. Wait Till You See Me Dance consists of several extraordinary longer stories as well as a selection of intoxicating very short stories. In the chilling “The First Full Thought of Her Life,” a shooter gets in position while a young girl climbs a sand dune. In “Voltaire Night,” students compete to tell a story about the worst thing that ever happened to them. In “Stay Where You Are,” two oblivious travelers in Central America are kidnapped by a gunman they assume to be an insurgent—but the gunman has his own problems. An Unferth story lures you in with a voice that seems amiable and lighthearted, but it swerves in sudden and surprising ways that reveal, in terrifying clarity, the rage, despair, and profound mournfulness that have taken up residence at the heart of the American dream. These stories often take place in an exaggerated or heightened reality, a quality that is reminiscent of the work of Donald Barthelme, Lorrie Moore, and George Saunders, but in Unferth’s unforgettable collection she carves out territory that is entirely her own.
Amy has enough to deal with for one lifetime: a superstitious Chinese mother, a best friend whose mood changes as dramatically as her hair colour and a reputation at high school for being weird. The last thing she needs is to be haunted by Logan, a ghost from the 80s. He could be dangerous. He might also be Amy’s dream boy. Preloved is an engaging young adult novel by Australian author Shirley Marr. This paranormal romance about a sassy teenage girl stuck between the past and the present deals with issues of self-esteem and independence. For more YA fiction, read Shirley’s murder mystery Fury. To learn more about these books, visit www.shirleymarr.net “Preloved is full of warmth, humour and retro supernatural. Will appeal to girls who love Twilight … and especially to those who don’t.” The West Australian “This book is full of humour, warmth and a genuine understanding of the difficulties faced in our modern, multicultural society. 4/5 stars.” Bookseller+Publisher “An enjoyable, amusing and, on many occasions, very moving, read.” Viewpoint “Funny, touching, and convincingly set in a contemporary Australian city … many readers will identify with the issues raised in an original way in this enjoyable read.” Reading Time magazine “Preloved is a witty, likeable ride through a good thirty years’ worth of pop culture and karmic retribution, and beneath its glittery, hairsprayed veneer is a thoughtful discussion of the ways in which we’re connected to others in our lives, and how widely our actions extend — both in our present context and across time.” Read in a Single Setting
Islam, Peace and Social Justice examines the ways in which Islamic cultures have dealt with issues of social justice historically and culturally. With unwavering objectivity, the author helps readers of any faith to gain a nuanced and accurate understanding of the challenges that we face in contemporary multifaith engagements. Dr van Gorder offers a comprehensive and sympathetic Christian insight into Islam. The contentious issues of social justice that are encountered in this broad, yet intricate, studyinclude the concept of Jihad, poverty, political oppression, human rights, genocide, racism, sexual injustice, homophobia, and environmental degradation. The challenges are real and the problems are vast; partnerships and solutions must be found - peopleof faith, Muslim, Jewish and Christian, must find ways to work together to address these shared challenges. This work exposes misrepresentations and stereotypes about Islamic views of social justice that abound in Europe and North America. The author encourages a deeper appreciation of how themes of social justice resound through Islamic texts and have been expressed both in the contemporary and historical life of various and diverse Islamic communities worldwide.
The former Poet Laureate of the United States, Nemerov gives us a lucid and precise twist on the commonplaces of everyday life. The Collected Poems of Howard Nemerov won both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize in 1978. "Howard Nemerov is a witty, urbane, thoughtful poet, grounded in the classics, a master of the craft. It is refreshing to read his work. . . . "—Minneapolis Tribune "The world causes in Nemerov a mingled revulsion and love, and a hopeless hope is the most attractive quality in his poems, which slowly turn obverse to reverse, seeing the permanence of change, the vices of virtue, the evanescence of solidities and the errors of truth."—Helen Vendler, New York Times Book Review
STARTLING EVIDENCE GIVES NANCY A NEW PERSPECTIVE ON THE FINE ART OF MURDER. Nancy's spending Thanksgiving in Paris, the city of light, love.. .and mystery. Her neighbor is Ellen Mathieson, a professor whose study of painter Josephine Solo has suddenly taken a dark and disturbing turn. Ellen's research assistant is dead -- killed in an accident exactly like the one that took Solo's life six months before! Josephine Solo left a legacy of secrecy and scandal. . .even the possibility of a double life. But Nancy begins to suspect that some of the professor's students also have something to hide. Paris is full of powerful temptations -- forbidden romance, secret passions, financial greed -- any one of which could lead to a motive for murder.
In vibrant prose, Z. Vance Wilson offers insight to anyone, whether parent or teacher, responsible for guiding children on the joyous, difficult, and ever-unpredictable path to becoming their best selves intellectually, socially, morally, and spiritually. With judiciousness, good will, and humor (all sharpened as head of a leading boys' school in Washington, D.C.), Wilson puts forth a clear set of principles, both practical and idealistic, for adults directing children toward wisdom and joy. An award-winning novelist, Wilson draws on colorful tales from his childhood in the American south, rousing episodes in history, and a remarkable assortment of poems, novels, and biblical readings, to illustrate the challenges children face and to illuminate the ways adults may best reach and teach them.
#1 New York Times bestselling author and finalist for the National Book Award — one of the most admired and controversial public intellectuals of our time — shares his personal life story. Most who have observed Christopher Hitchens over the years would agree that he possesses a ferocious intellect and is unafraid to tackle the most contentious subjects. Now 60, English-born and American by adoption; all atheist and partly Jewish; bohemian (even listing "drinking" along with "disputation" as "hobbies" in Who's Who), he has held to a consistent thread of principle whether opposing war in Vietnam or supporting intervention in Iraq. As a foreign correspondent in some of the world's nastiest places, a lecturer and teacher and an esteemed literary critic, Hitchens manifests a style that is at once ironic, witty, and tough-minded. A legendary bon vivant with an unquenchable thirst for literature, he has sometimes ridiculed those who claim that the personal is political, though he has often seemed to illustrate that very idea. Readers will find that his own many opposites attract, as do his many sketches of friendship and ex-friendship, from Martin Amis to Noam Chomsky. Condemned to be able to see both sides of any argument, Christopher Hitchens has contradictions that contain their own multitudes.
