catapult new york ny (230 results)

Hardcover. Condition: Near Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine. 1st Edition. Near new with a hint of rubbing and scuffing to mylar protected dust jacket. Otherwise tight, bright, unmarked interior. NO remainder marks. Shipping confirmed!.

Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. AN INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLERMemoir meets craft master class in this daring, honest, psychologically insightful exploration of how we think and write about intimate experiencesa must read for anybody shoving a pen across paper or staring into a screen or a past" (Mary Karr)In this bold and exhilarating mix of memoir and master class, Melissa Febos tackles the emotional, psychological, and physical work of writing intimately while offering an utterly fresh examination of the storytellers life and the questions which run through it. How might we go about capturing on the page the relationships that have formed us? How do we write about our bodies, their desires and traumas? What does it mean for an authors way of writing, or living, to be dismissed as navel-gazingor else hailed as so brave, so raw? And to whom, in the end, do our most intimate stories belong? Drawing on her own path from aspiring writer to acclaimed author and writing professorvia addiction and recovery, sex work and academiaMelissa Febos has created a captivating guide to the writing life, and a brilliantly unusual exploration of subjectivity, privacy, and the power of divulgence. Candid and inspiring, Body Work will empower readers and writers alike, offering ideasand occasional notes of cautionto anyone who has ever hoped to see themselves in a story. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.

Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. A collection of essays about the joys and struggles of being alone by 22 literary writers including- Lev Grossman, Jhumpa Lahiri, Lena Dunham, Jesmyn Ward, Yiyun Li, and Anthony DoerrIf you're feeling lonely or if you've ever felt unseen, if you're emboldened by solitude or secretly longing for it- Welcome to The Lonely Stories. This cathartic collection of essays illuminates an experience that so few of us openly discuss. Some stories are heartbreaking, such as Jesmyn Ward's reckoning with the loss of her husband and Dina Nayeri's reflection on immigrating to a foreign country. Others are witty, such as Lev Grossman's rueful tale of heading to the woods or Anthony Doerr's struggles with internet addiction. Still others celebrate the clarity of solitude, like Claire Dederer's journey toward sobriety and Lidia Yuknavitch's sensual look at desire. Thoughtful and affirming, The Lonely Stories reveals the complexities of an emotion we've all felt-reminding us that we're not alone.Contributors include-Megan GiddingsClaire DedererImani PerryJeffery Renard AllenMaggie ShipsteadEmily RaboteauLev GrossmanLena DunhamYiyun LiAnthony DoerrHelena FitzgeraldMaile MeloyAja GabelJean KwokAmy ShearnPeter Ho DaviesMaya Shanbhag LangJhumpa LahiriJesmyn WardLidia YuknavitchDina NayeriMelissa Febos Thoughtful and affirming, this collection of essays about the joys and struggles of being alone illuminates an experience that is rarely openly discussed. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.

Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. J. Nicole Jones is the only daughter of a prominent South Carolina family, a family that grew rich building the hotels and seafood restaurants that draw tourists to Myrtle Beach. But at home, she is surrounded by violence and capriciousness- a grandfather who beats his wife, a barman father who dreams of being a country music star. At one time, Jones's parents can barely afford groceries; at another, her volatile grandfather presents her with a fur coat.After a girlhood of extreme wealth and deep debt, of ghosts and folklore, of cruel men and unwanted spectacle, Jones finds herself face to face with an explosive possibility concerning her long-abused grandmother that she can neither speak nor shake. And through the lens of her own family's catastrophes and triumphs, Jones pays homage to the landscapes and legends of her childhood home, a region haunted by its history- Eliza Pinckney cultivates indigo, Blackbeard ransacks the coast, and the Gray Man paces the beach, warning of Hurricane Hazel."From horse thieves to hurricanes, from shattered Southern myths to fractured family ties, from Nashville to Myrtle Beach to Miami, Low Country is a lyrical, devastating, fiercely original memoir" of one family's changing fortunes in the Low Country of South Carolina (Justin Taylor, author of Riding with the Ghost).J. Nicole Jones is the only daughter of a prominent South Carolina family, a family that grew rich building the hotels and seafood restaurants that draw tourists to Myrtle Beach. But at home, she is surrounded by violence and capriciousness- a grandfather who beats his wife, a barman father who dreams of being a country music star. At one time, Jones's parents can barely afford groceries; at another, her volatile grandfather presents her with a fur coat.After a girlhood of extreme wealth and deep debt, of ghosts and folklore, of cruel men and unwanted spectacle, Jones finds herself face to face with an explosive possibility concerning her long-abused grandmother that she can neither speak nor shake. And through the lens of her own family's catastrophes and triumphs, Jones pays homage to the landscapes and legends of her childhood home, a region haunted by its history- Eliza Pinckney cultivates indigo, Blackbeard ransacks the coast, and the Gray Man paces the beach, warning of Hurricane Hazel. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.

Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. "In this delightful autofictionthe first book by Gainza, an Argentine art critic, to appear in Englisha woman delivers pithy assessments of worldclass painters along with glimpses of her life, braiding the two into an illuminating whole." The New York Times Book Review, Notable Book of the Year and Editors' ChoiceThe narrator of Optic Nerve is an Argentinian woman whose obsession is art. The story of her life is the story of the paintings, and painters, who matter to her. Her intimate, digressive voice guides us through a gallery of moments that have touched her.In these pages, El Greco visits the Sistine Chapel and is appalled by Michelangelos bodies. The mystery of Rothkos refusal to finish murals for the Seagram Building in New York is blended with the story of a hospital in which a prostitute walks the halls while the narrators husband receives chemotherapy. Alfred de Dreux visits Gericaults workshop; Gustave Courbets devilish seascapes incite viewers to have sex, or to eat an apple; Picasso organizes a cruel banquet in Rousseaus honor . . . All of these fascinating episodes in art history interact with the narrators life in Buenos Airesher family and work; her loves and losses; her infatuations and disappointments. The effect is of a character refracted by environment, composed by the canvases she studies.Seductive and capricious, Optic Nerve marks the Englishlanguage debut of a major Argentinian writer. It is a book that captures, like no other, the mysterious connections between a work of art and the person who perceives it. The U.S. debut novel of a celebrated Argentinian author--named a finalist for the Premio Dulce Chacon--blending fiction, history, and personal essay to tell the story of one woman's obsession with art Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.

Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. Best Debut Short Stories is an annual celebration of the most promising short story writers today. Selected by a panel of distinguished judges, these twelve stories are the 2023 winners of the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers, which recognizes each writer's outstanding debut in a literary magazine.The stories in this anthology encompass fraught family gatherings, death, inheritance, reproduction and birth, translation, secrets, and betrayals. They show us what we would rather not face- a grandmother's repeated resurrection, the loss of a child, a family's excuses for a predator. They direct our attention away from fluorescence and to the natural world- iguanas climbing into beds, a reflection in an orange, sweat like rain drops, gossamer petals, a child named Ant. They question how well we can ever know other people- partners reconsidering each other on the brink of divorce, an imaginary roommate. They remind us that some questions have no perfect answer- Why pretend not to understand someone in need? What can anyone do with anxieties over becoming a parent?This year's stories were selected by judges Venita Blackburn, Richard Chiem, and Dantiel W. Moniz, innovators of the short story form. Each story is accompanied by an introduction from the journal editor who first published it, providing insight about what's exciting in fiction right now, and recognizing the vital work literary magazines do in nurturing new voices.The essential annual guide to the newest voices in literatureSelected by Venita Blackburn, Richard Chiem, and Dantiel W. MonizBest Debut Short Stories is an annual celebration of the most promising short story writers today. Selected by a panel of distinguished judges, these twelve stories are the 2023 winners of the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers, which recognizes each writer's outstanding debut in a literary magazine.The stories in this anthology encompass fraught family gatherings, death, inheritance, reproduction and birth, translation, secrets, and betrayals. They show us what we would rather not face- a grandmother's repeated resurrection, the loss of a child, a family's excuses for a predator. They direct our attention away from fluorescence and to the natural world- iguanas climbing into beds, a reflection in an orange, sweat like rain drops, gossamer petals, a child named Ant. They question how well we can ever know other people- partners reconsidering each other on the brink of divorce, an imaginary roommate. They remind us that some questions have no perfect answer- Why pretend not to understand someone in need? What can anyone do with anxieties over becoming a parent?This year's stories were selected by judges Venita Blackburn, Richard Chiem, and Dantiel W. Moniz, innovators of the short story form. Each story is accompanied by an introduction from the journal editor who first published it, providing insight about what's exciting in fiction right now, and recognizing the vital work literary magazines do in nurturing new voices. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.

Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. Longlisted for the PEN/Jean Stein Book AwardA historical tapestry of border-crossing travelers, of students, wanderers, martyrs and invaders, The White Mosque is a memoiristic, prismatic record of a journey through Uzbekistan and of the strange shifts, encounters, and accidents that combine to create an identityIn the late nineteenth century, a group of German-speaking Mennonites traveled from Russia into Central Asia, where their charismatic leader predicted Christ would return.Over a century later, Sofia Samatar joins a tour following their path, fascinated not by the hardships of their journey, but by its aftermath: the establishment of a small Christian village in the Muslim Khanate of Khiva. Named Ak Metchet, The White Mosque, after the Mennonites whitewashed church, the village lasted for fifty years.In pursuit of this curious history, Samatar discovers a variety of characters whose lives intersect around the ancient Silk Road, from a fifteenth-century astronomer-king, to an intrepid Swiss woman traveler of the 1930s, to the first Uzbek photographer, and explores such topics as Central Asian cinema, Mennonite martyrs, and Samatars own complex upbringing as the daughter of a Swiss-Mennonite and a Somali-Muslim, raised as a Mennonite of color in America.A secular pilgrimage to a lost village and a near-forgotten history, The White Mosque traces the porous and ever-expanding borders of identity, asking: How do we enter the stories of others? And how, out of the tissue of life, with its weird incidents, buried archives, and startling connections, does a person construct a self? Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.

Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. Tuck is slow to understand the circumstances that have driven her family to an uninhabited island off the coast of Maine, the former home of her deceased grandmother where she once spent her childhood summers. Squatting there now, she must care for her spirited young daughter and scrape together enough money to leave before winter arrives-or before they are found out.Relying on the island for sustenance and answers-bladderwrack, rosehips, tenacious little green crabs; smells held by the damp walls of the house, field guides and religious texts, a failed invention left behind by her missing father-Tuck lives moment-by-moment through the absurdity, beauty, paranoia, and hunger that shoots through her life, as her husband struggles to detox.Exquisitely written and formally daring, Lungfish tells the story of a woman grappling through the lies she has been told-and those she has told herself-to arrive at the truth of who she is and where she must go. Meghan Gilliss's debut is a brilliant and heartbreaking novel about addiction, doubt, marriage, motherhood, and learning to see in the dark.A New York Times Book Review Editors' ChoiceLonglisted for The Center for Fiction 2022 First Novel Prize"Lungfish is a force of nature-a deeply felt marvel of a book that navigates grief, parenthood, and the mysteries of family with unrelenting power and precision. Here is a story about the islands we build and carry with us. Here is storytelling at its best." -Paul Yoon, author of Snow Hunters and Run Me to EarthTuck is slow to understand the circumstances that have driven her family to an uninhabited island off the coast of Maine, the former home of her deceased grandmother where she once spent her childhood summers. Squatting there now, she must care for her spirited young daughter and scrape together enough money to leave before winter arrives-or before they are found out.Relying on the island for sustenance and answers-bladderwrack, rosehips, tenacious little green crabs; smells held by the damp walls of the house, field guides and religious texts, a failed invention left behind by her missing father-Tuck lives moment-by-moment through the absurdity, beauty, paranoia, and hunger that shoots through her life, as her husband struggles to detox.Exquisitely written and formally daring, Lungfish tells the story of a woman grappling through the lies she has been told-and those she has told herself-to arrive at the truth of who she is and where she must go. Meghan Gilliss's debut is a brilliant and heartbreaking novel about addiction, doubt, marriage, motherhood, and learning to see in the dark. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.

Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. "How lovely to discover a book on the craft of writing that is also fun to read . . . Alison asserts that the best stories follow patterns in nature, and by defining these new styles she offers writers the freedom to explore but with enough guidance to thrive." Maris Kreizman, VultureA Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2019 | A Poets & Writers Best Books for WritersAs Jane Alison writes in the introduction to her insightful and appealing book about the craft of writing: For centuries theres been one path through fiction were most likely to travel one were actually told to followand thats the dramatic arc: a situation arises, grows tense, reaches a peak, subsides . . . But something that swells and tautens until climax, then collapses? Bit masculosexual, no? So many other patterns run through nature, tracing other deep motions in life. Why not draw on them, too?"W. G. Sebalds Emigrants was the first novel to show Alison how forward momentum can be created by way of pattern, rather than the traditional arc--or, in nature, wave. Other writers of nonlinear prose considered in her museum of specimens include Nicholson Baker, Anne Carson, Marguerite Duras, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Jamaica Kincaid, Clarice Lispector, Susan Minot, David Mitchell, Caryl Phillips, and Mary Robison.Meander, Spiral, Explode is a singular and brilliant elucidation of literary strategies that also brings high spirits and wit to its original conclusions. It is a liberating manifesto that says, Lets leave the outdated modes behind and, in thinking of new modes, bring feeling back to experimentation. It will appeal to serious readers and writers alike. Novelist and writing teacher Jane Alison illuminates the many shapes other than the usual wavelike "narrative arc" that can move fiction forward. The stories she loves most follow other organic patterns found in nature--spirals, meanders, and explosions, among others. Alison's manifesto for new modes of narrative will appeal to serious readers and writers alike. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.

Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. A collection of horror-inspired flash fiction, featuring over 40 new stories from literary, horror, and emerging writers-edited by Lincoln Michel and Nadxieli Nieto, the twisted minds behind Tiny Crimes- Very Short Tales of Mystery and MurderIn this playful, inventive collection, leading literary and horror writers spin chilling tales in only a few pages. Each slim, fast-moving story brings to life the kind of monsters readers love to fear, from brokenhearted vampires to Uber-taking serial killers and mind-reading witches.But what also makes Tiny Nightmares so bloodcurdling-and unforgettable-are the real-world horrors that writers such as Samantha Hunt, Brian Evenson, Jac Jemc, Stephen Graham Jones, Lilliam Rivera, Kevin Brockmeier, and Rion Amilcar Scott weave into their fictions, exploring how global warming, racism, social media addiction, and homelessness are just as frightening as, say, a vampire's fangs sinking into your neck.Our advice? Read with the hall light on and the bedroom door open just a crack.Featuring new stories from Samantha Hunt, Jac Jemc, Stephen Graham Jones, Rion Amilcar Scott, and more! Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.

Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. Traveling from Pittsburgh to Eastern Washington to Tamil Nadu, these stories about dislocation and dissonance see immigrants and their families confront the costs of leaving and staying, identifying sublime symmetries in lives growing apart.In "Malliga Homes," selected by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie for an O. Henry Prize, a widow in a retirement community glimpses her future while waiting for her daughter to visit from America. In "No. 16 Model House Road," a woman long subordinate to her husband makes a choice of her own after she inherits a house. In "Nature Exchange," a mother grieving in the wake of a school shooting finds an unusual obsession. In "A Life in America," a professor finds himself accused of having exploited his graduate students.Sindya Bhanoo's haunting stories show us how immigrants' paths, and the paths of those they leave behind, are never simple. Bhanoo takes us along on their complicated journeys where regret, hope, and triumph appear in disguise.These intimate stories of South Indian immigrants and the families they left behind center women's lives and ask how women both claim and surrender power-a stunning debut collection from an O. Henry Prize winnerTraveling from Pittsburgh to Eastern Washington to Tamil Nadu, these stories about dislocation and dissonance see immigrants and their families confront the costs of leaving and staying, identifying sublime symmetries in lives growing apart.In "Malliga Homes," selected by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie for an O. Henry Prize, a widow in a retirement community glimpses her future while waiting for her daughter to visit from America. In "No. 16 Model House Road," a woman long subordinate to her husband makes a choice of her own after she inherits a house. In "Nature Exchange," a mother grieving in the wake of a school shooting finds an unusual obsession. In "A Life in America," a professor finds himself accused of having exploited his graduate students.Sindya Bhanoo's haunting stories show us how immigrants' paths, and the paths of those they leave behind, are never simple. Bhanoo takes us along on their complicated journeys where regret, hope, and triumph appear in disguise. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.

Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. A fearless collection of stories that celebrate the humor, darkness, and depth of emotion of the queer and trans experience that's not typically represented: liminal or uncertain identities, queer conception, and queer joyIn this exuberant, prize-winning collection, queer, trans, and gender-nonconforming characters seek love and connection in hilarious and heartrending stories that reflect the complexity of our current moment.A nonbinary writer on the eve of top surgery enters into a risky affair during the height of COVID. A lesbian couple enlists a close friend as a sperm donor, plying him with a potent rainbow-colored cocktail. A lonely office worker struggling with their gender identity chaperones their nephew to a trans YouTube convention. And in the depths of a Midwestern winter, a sex-addicted librarian relies on her pet ferrets to help resist a relapse at a wild college fair.Capturing both the dark and lovable sides of the human experience, Rainbow Rainbow establishes debut author Lydia Conklin as a fearless new voice for their generation. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.

Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. A TIME Best Book of the YearA New Yorker Best Book of the Year An extraordinary novel from a Man Booker International Prize-winning author that follows one young Omani woman as she builds a life for herself in Britain and reflects on the relationships that have made her from a remarkable writer who has constructed her own novelistic form (James Wood, The New Yorker).From Man Booker International Prizewinning author Jokha Alharthi, Bitter Orange Tree is a profound exploration of social status, wealth, desire, and female agency. It presents a mosaic portrait of one young womans attempt to understand the roots she has grown from, and to envisage an adulthood in which her own power and happiness might find the freedom necessary to bear fruit and flourish.Zuhour, an Omani student at a British university, is caught between the past and the present. As she attempts to form friendships and assimilate in Britain, she cant help but ruminate on the relationships that have been central to her life. Most prominent is her strong emotional bond with Bint Amir, a woman she always thought of as her grandmother, who passed away just before Zuhour left the Arabian Peninsula.As the historical narrative of Bint Amirs challenged circumstances unfurls in captivating fragments, so too does Zuhours isolated and unfulfilled present, one narrative segueing into another as time slips and dreams mingle with memories. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.

Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. In this electric debut essay collection, a Myanmar millennial playfully challenges us to examine the knots and complications of immigration status, eating habits, Western feminism in an Asian home, and more, guiding us toward an expansive idea of what it means to be a Myanmar woman todayWhat does it mean to be a Myanmar persona baker, swimmer, writer and womanon your own terms rather than those of the colonizer? These irreverent yet vulnerable essays ask that question by tracing the journey of a woman who spent her young adulthood in the US and UK before returning to her hometown of Yangon, where she still lives.In Youve Changed, Pyae takes on romantic relationships whose futures are determined by different passports, switching accents in American taxis, the patriarchal Myanmar concept of hpone which governs how laundry is done, swimming as refuge from mental illness, pleasure and shame around eating rice, and baking in a kitchen far from white Americas imagination.Throughout, she wrestles with the question of who she isa Myanmar woman in the West, a Western-educated person in Yangon, a writer who refuses to be labeled a race writer. With intimate and funny prose, Pyae shows how the truth of identity may be found not in stability, but in its gloriously unsettled nature. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.

Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. The beguiling story of a young journalist whose investigation of a murder leads her to the most legendary healer in all of Mexico, from one of the most prominent voices of a new generation of Latin American writersPaloma is dead. But before she was murdered, before she was even Paloma, she was a traditional healer named Gaspar. Before she was murdered, she taught her cousin Feliciana the secrets of the ceremonies known as veladas, and about the Language and the Book that unlock their secrets.Sent to report on Palomas murder, Zoe meets Feliciana in the mountain village of San Felipe. There, the two womens lives twist around each other in a danse macabre. Feliciana tells Zoe the story of her struggle to become an accepted healer in her community, and Zoe begins to understand the hidden history of her own experience as a woman, finding her way in a hostile environment shaped by and for men.Weaving together two parallel narratives that mirror and refract one another, this extraordinary novel envisions the healer as storyteller and the writer as healer, and offers a generous and nuanced understanding of a world that can be at turns violent and exultant, cruel and full of hope.A story of the worlds repeated failure to control feminine power and the sheer magic of language itself. An enthralling, passionate story about secrets both holy and profane. Catherine Lacey, author of Pew and Nobody Is Ever Missing Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.

Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. Finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut NovelHow can we live with integrity and pleasure in this world of police brutality and racism? An Asian American activist is challenged by his mother to face this question in this powerful-and funny-debut novel of generational change, a mother's secret, and an activist's coming-of-ageTwenty-one-year-old Reed is fed up. Angry about the killing of a Black man by an Asian American NYPD officer, he wants to drop out of college and devote himself to the Black Lives Matter movement. But would that truly bring him closer to the moral life he seeks?In a series of intimate, charged conversations, his mother-once the leader of a Korean-Black coalition-demands that he rethink his outrage, and along with it, what it means to be an organizer, a student, an ally, an American, and a son. As Reed zips around his hometown of Los Angeles with his mother, searching and questioning, he faces a revelation that will change everything.Inspired by his family's roots in activism, Ryan Lee Wong offers an extraordinary debut novel for readers of Anthony Veasna So, Rachel Kushner, and Michelle Zauner- a book that is as humorous as it is profound, a celebration of seeking a life that is both virtuous and fun, an ode to mothering and being mothered. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.

Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. Longlisted for the Center for Fiction Debut Novel prize, this fableistic, "beautifully crafted, poetic" debut novel about a sister trying to hold back her brother from the edge of the abyss is for readers of Jesmyn Ward and Tommy Orange (The New York Times Book Review).In the tourist town of Ciudad de Tres Hermanas, in the aftermath of their mother's passing, two siblings spend a final weekend together in their childhood home. Seeing her brother, Rafa, careening toward a place of no return, Rufina devises a bet: if they can make enough money performing for privileged tourists in the plaza over the course of the weekend to afford a plane ticket out, Rafa must commit to living. If not, Rufina will make her peace with Rafa's own plan for the future, however terrifying it may be.As the siblings reckon with generational and ancestral trauma, set against the indignities of present-day prejudice, other strange hauntings begin to stalk these pages: their mother's ghost kicks her heels against the walls; Rufina's vanished child creeps into her arms at night; and above all this, watching over the siblings, a genderless, flea-bitten angel remains hell-bent on saving what can be saved. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.

Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. Longlisted for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the EssayA new collection of pieces on literature and life by the author of Am I Alone Here?, a finalist for the NBCC Award for CriticismStationed in the South Pacific during World War II, Seymour Orner wrote a letter every day to his wife, Lorraine. She seldom responded, leading him to plead in 1945, Another day and still no word from you. Seventy years later, Peter Orner writes in response to his grandfathers plea: Maybe we read because we seek that word from someone, from anyone.From the acclaimed fiction writer about whom Dwight Garner of The New York Times wrote, You know from the second you pick him up that hes the real deal, comes Still No Word from You, a unique chain of essays and intimate stories that meld the lived life and the reading life. For Orner, there is no separation. Covering such well-known writers as Lorraine Hansberry, Primo Levi, and Marilynne Robinson, as well as other greats like Maeve Brennan and James Alan McPherson, Orners highly personal take on literature alternates with his own true stories of loss and love, hope and despair. In his mothers copy of A Coney Island of the Mind, hes stopped short by a single word in the margin, YES!which leads him to conjure his mother at twenty-three. He stops reading Penelope Fitzgeralds The Beginning of Spring three quarters of the way through because he knows that finishing the novel will leave him bereft. Orners solution is to start again from the beginning to slow the inevitable heartache.Still No Word from You is a book for anyone for whom reading is as essential as breathing. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.

Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. Dept. of Speculation meets Black Mirror in this lyrical, speculative debut about a queer mother raising her daughter in an unjust surveillance state In a United States not so unlike our own, the Department of Balance has adopted a radical new form of law enforcement: rather than incarceration, wrongdoers are given a second (and sometimes, third, fourth, and fifth) shadow as a reminder of their crimeand a warning to those they encounter. Within the Department, corruption and prejudice run rampant, giving rise to an underclass of so-called Shadesters who are disenfranchised, publicly shamed, and deprived of civil rights protections.Kris is a Shadester and a new mother to a baby born with a second shadow of her own. Grieving the loss of her wife and thoroughly unprepared for the reality of raising a child alone, Kris teeters on the edge of collapse, fumbling in a daze of alcohol, shame, and self-loathing. Yet as the kid grows, Kris finds her footing, raising a child whose irrepressible spark cannot be dampened by the harsh realities of the world. She cant forget her wife, but with time, she can make a new life for herself and the kid, supported by a community of fellow misfits who defy the Department to lift one another up in solidarity and hope.With a first-person register reminiscent of the fierce self-disclosure of Sheila Heti and the poetic precision of Ocean Vuong, I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself is a bold debut novel that examines the long shadow of grief, the hard work of parenting, and the power of queer resistance. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.

Hardcover. Condition: new. Hardcover. Featuring deep dives into thirst traps, drag queens, Antonio Banderas, and telenovelasall in the service of helping us reframe how we talk about (desiring) menthis insightful memoir-in-essays is as much a coming of age as a coming out bookManuel Betancourt has long lustfully coveted masculinityin part because he so lacked it. As a child in Bogota, Colombia, he grew up with the social pressure to appear strong, manly, and, ultimately, straight. And yet in the films and television he avidly watched, Betancourt saw glimmers of different possibilities. From the stars of telenovelas and the princes of Disney films to pop sensation Ricky Martin and teen heartthrobs in shows like Saved By the Bell, he continually found himself asking: Do I want him or do I want to be him?The Male Gazed grapples with the thrall of masculinity, examining its frailty and its attendant anxieties even as it focuses on its erotic potential. Masculinity, Betancourt suggests, isnt suddenly ripe for deconstructionor even outright destructionamid so much talk about its inherent toxicity. Looking back over decades worth of pop cultures attempts to codify and reframe what men can be, wear, do, and desire, this book establishes that to gaze at men is still a subversive act.Written in the spirit of Hanif Abdurraqib and Olivia Laing, The Male Gazed mingles personal anecdotes with cultural criticism to offer an exploration of intimacy, homoeroticism, and the danger of internalizing too many toxic ideas about masculinity as a gay man. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.

Hardcover. Condition: new. Hardcover. A young woman reorients her relationship to the world in the wake of sudden deafness in this mesmerizing debut novel for readers of Rachel Cusk, Clarice Lispector, and Fleur JaeggyWhen the narrator of The Hearing Test, an artist in her late twenties, awakens one morning to a deep drone in her right ear, she is diagnosed with Sudden Deafness, but is offered no explanation for its cause. As the specter of total deafness looms, she keeps a record of her yeara score of estrangement and enchantment, of luck and loneliness, of the chance occurrences to which she becomes attunedwhile living alone in a New York City studio apartment with her dog.Through a series of fleeting and often humorous encounterswith neighbors, an ex-lover, doctors, strangers, family members, faraway friends, and with the lives and works of artists, filmmakers, musicians, and philosophersmaking meaning becomes a form of consolation and curiosity, a form of survival. At once a rumination on silence and a novel on seeing, The Hearing Test is a work of vitalizing intellect and playfulness which marks the arrival of a major new literary writer with a rare command of form, compression, and intent. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.

Hardcover. Condition: new. Hardcover. On a Greek island rich with ancient beauty, a lonely woman in her thirties upends the relationship between a mother and her teenage daughter. Lust and admiration for Helena, a chic older artist, brings Antiquity's unnamed narrator to Ermoupoli, where Helena's daughter, Olga, seems at first like an obstacle and a nuisance. But the unpredictable forces of ego and desire take over, leading our narrator down a more dangerous path, and causing the roles of lover and beloved, child and adult, stranger and intimate to become distorted. As the months go by, the fragile web connecting the three women nears rupture, and the ominous consequences of their entanglement loom just beyond a summer that must end.With echoes of Death in Venice, Call Me by Your Name, and The Lover, but wholly original and contemporary, Antiquity probes the depths of memory, beauty, morality, and the narratives that arrange our experience of the world.Elegant, slippery, and provocative, Antiquity is a queer Lolita story by prize-winning Swedish author Hanna Johansson-a story of desire, power, obsession, observation, and tabooOn a Greek island rich with ancient beauty, a lonely woman in her thirties upends the relationship between a mother and her teenage daughter. Lust and admiration for Helena, a chic older artist, brings Antiquity's unnamed narrator to Ermoupoli, where Helena's daughter, Olga, seems at first like an obstacle and a nuisance. But the unpredictable forces of ego and desire take over, leading our narrator down a more dangerous path, and causing the roles of lover and beloved, child and adult, stranger and intimate to become distorted. As the months go by, the fragile web connecting the three women nears rupture, and the ominous consequences of their entanglement loom just beyond a summer that must end.With echoes of Death in Venice, Call Me by Your Name, and The Lover, but wholly original and contemporary, Antiquity probes the depths of memory, beauty, morality, and the narratives that arrange our experience of the world. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.

Hardcover. Condition: new. Hardcover. Set in a country where being gay is punishable by law, These Letters End in Tears is the heart-wrenching forbidden love story of a Christian girl with a rebellious heart and a Muslim girl leading a double lifeBessem notices Fatima for the first time on the soccer fieldmuscular and focused, shes the only woman playing and seems completely at ease. When Fatima chases a rogue ball in her direction, Bessem freezes, mesmerized by the athletes charm and beauty. One playful wink from Fatima, and Bessem knows her life will never be the same.In Cameroon, a country where same-sex relationships are punishable by law, the odds are stacked against Bessem and Fatima from the start. And when Fatimas older brother, a staunch Muslim, finds out about their affair, he intervenes by physically assaulting them, an incident that precedes a police raid at the only gay bar in town. After spending days in jail, Fatima goes missing without a trace, and Bessem is left with only rumors of her whereabouts. Has Fatima been sentenced to an unknown prison? Has she been banished from her community, or married off, as some have suggested? Or something even more sinister?Thirteen years later, Bessem is now a university professor leading a relatively quiet life, occasionally and secretly dating other women. However, she has never forgotten Fatima. After spotting a mutual friend for the first time in yearsthe last person who may have seen FatimaBessem embarks on a winding search for her lost love. Description based on publisher data; resource not viewed. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.

Hardcover. Condition: new. Hardcover. A poignant, surprising, and immersive read about a young professional woman pursuing an emotionally intense relationship with a married lesbian couple, for readers of Kristen Arnett and Melissa BroderHelen, a jittery attorney with a self-destructive streak, is secretly reeling from a disturbing crime of neglect that her parents recently committed. Historically happy to compartmentalizedistracting herself by hooking up with lesbian couples, doting on her grandmother, and flirting with a young administrative assistantHelen finally meets her match with Catherine and Katrina, a married couple who startle and intrigue her with their ever-increasing sexual and emotional intensity.Perceptive and attentive, Catherine and Katrina prod at Helens life, revealing a childhood tragedy shes been repressing. When her father begs her yet again for help getting parole, she realizes that she has a bargaining chip to get answers to her past.A Good Happy Girl is interested in worlds without menand women who will do what they can to get what they want. In her exploration of twisted desires, queer domesticity, and the effects of incarceration on the family, Marissa Higgins offers empathy to characters who often dont receive it, with unsettling results. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.

Hardcover. Condition: new. Hardcover. Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medals of ExcellenceThis witty personal and cultural history of travel from the perspective of a Third World-raised woman of color, Airplane Mode, asks: what does it mean to be a joyous traveler when we live in the ruins of colonialism, capitalism and climate change?The conditions of travel have long been dictated by the color of passports and the color of skin.The color of ones skin and passport have long dictated the conditions of travel. For Shahnaz Habib, travel and travel writing have always been complicated pleasures. Habib threads the history of travel with her personal story as a child on family vacations in India, an adult curious about the world, and an immigrant for whom roundtrips are an annual fact of life. Tracing the power dynamics that underlie tourism, this insightful debut parses who gets to travel, and who gets to write about the experience.Threaded through the book are inviting and playful analyses of obvious and not-so-obvious travel artifacts: passports, carousels, bougainvilleas, guidebooks, trains, the idea of wanderlust itself. Together, they tell a subversive history of travel as a Euro-American mode of consumerismbut as any traveler knows, travel is more than that. As an immigrant whose loved ones live across continents, Habib takes a deeply curious and joyful look at a troubled and beloved activity. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.

Hardcover. Condition: new. Hardcover. One Thanksgiving afternoon at his grandparents' house, Jordan Salama discovers a large binder stuffed with yellowing papers and old photographs-a five-hundred-year wandering history of his Arab-Jewish family, from Moorish Spain to Ottoman Syria to Argentina and beyond.One story in particular captures his attention- that of his great-grandfather, a Syrian-born, Arabic-speaking Jewish immigrant to Argentina who in the 1920s worked as a traveling salesman in the Andes-and may have left behind forgotten descendants along the way. Encouraged by his grandfather, Jordan goes in search of these "Lost Salamas," traveling more than a thousand miles up the spine of South America's greatest mountain range.Combining travelog, history, memoir, and reportage, Stranger in the Desert transports readers from the lonely plains of Patagonia to the breathtaking altiplano of the high Andes; from the old Jewish quarter of Damascus to today's vibrant neighborhoods of Buenos Aires. It is also a fervent journey of self-discovery as Salama grapples with his own Jewish, Arab, and Latin American identities, interrogating the stories families tell themselves, and to what end.Inspired by family lore, a young writer embarks on an epic quest through the Argentine Andes in search of a heritage spanning hemispheres and centuries, from the Jewish Levant to turn-of-the-century trade routes in South AmericaOne Thanksgiving afternoon at his grandparents' house, Jordan Salama discovers a large binder stuffed with yellowing papers and old photographs-a five-hundred-year wandering history of his Arab-Jewish family, from Moorish Spain to Ottoman Syria to Argentina and beyond.One story in particular captures his attention- that of his great-grandfather, a Syrian-born, Arabic-speaking Jewish immigrant to Argentina who in the 1920s worked as a traveling salesman in the Andes-and may have left behind forgotten descendants along the way. Encouraged by his grandfather, Jordan goes in search of these "Lost Salamas," traveling more than a thousand miles up the spine of South America's greatest mountain range.Combining travelog, history, memoir, and reportage, Stranger in the Desert transports readers from the lonely plains of Patagonia to the breathtaking altiplano of the high Andes; from the old Jewish quarter of Damascus to today's vibrant neighborhoods of Buenos Aires. It is also a fervent journey of self-discovery as Salama grapples with his own Jewish, Arab, and Latin American identities, interrogating the stories families tell themselves, and to what end. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.

Hardcover. Condition: New. Dust Jacket Condition: New. 1st Edition. N/N, hc, 218pp. Navy colored paper over boards with white text on spine; no defects. Color illustrated dust jacket with navy, and black colored text on upper and navy and mint colored text on spine; no chips or tears; not price clipped. Interior pages clean, unmarked. Binding is straight and tight.

Hardcover. Condition: new. Hardcover. A masterful hybrid of nature writing and cultural studies that investigates our connection with deerfrom mythology to biology, from forests to cities, from coexistence to control and exterminationand invites readers to contemplate the paradoxes of how humans interact with and shape the natural worldDeer have been an important part of the world that humans occupy for millennia. Theyre one of the only large animals that can thrive in our presence. In the 21st century, our relationship is full of contradictions: We hunt and protect them, we cull them from suburbs while making them an icon of wilderness, we see them both as victims and as pests. But there is no doubt that we have a connection to deer: in mythology and story, in ecosystems biological and digital, in cities and in forests. Delving into the historical roots of these tangled attitudes and how they play out in the present, Erika Howsare observes scientists capture and collar fawns, hunters show off their trophies, a museum interpreter teaching American history while tanning a deer hide, an animal-control officer collecting the carcasses of deer killed by sharpshooters, and a woman bottle-raising orphaned fawns in her backyard. As she reports these stories, Howsares eye is always on the bigger picture: Why do we look at deer in the ways we do, and what do these animals reveal about human involvement in the natural world? For readers of H is for Hawk and Fox & I, The Age of Deer offers a unique and intimate perspective on a very human relationship. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.

Hardcover. Condition: new. Hardcover. Five months pregnant and struggling with a creative block, JoAnna Novak becomes obsessed with the enigmatic abstract expressionist painter Agnes Martin. She is drawn to the contradictions in Martin's life as well as her art-the soft and exacting brushstrokes she employs for grid-like compositions that are both rigid and dreamy. But what most calls to JoAnna is Martin's dedication to her work in the face of paranoid schizophrenia.Uneasy with the changes her pregnant body is undergoing, JoAnna relapses into damaging old habits and thought patterns. When she confides in her doctor that she's struggling with depression and suicidal ideation, he tells her she must stop being so selfish, given she has a baby on the way, and start taking antidepressants. Appalled by his patronizing tone and disregard of her mental health history, JoAnna instead turns to Martin for guidance, adopting the artist's doctrine of joyful solitude and isolation.JoAnna heads to Taos, where Martin lived for decades, and gives herself three weeks to model her hermetic existence- phone off, email off, no talking to her husband, no touching the dog. Out of a deep, solitary engagement with a remarkable artist's body of work emerges an entirely new way for JoAnna to relate to the contradictions of her own body and face up to the joys and challenges of impending motherhood.For readers of Rachel Cusk and Maggie Nelson, the rapturous memoir of a soon-to-be-mother whose obsession with the reclusive painter Agnes Martin threatens to upend her lifeFive months pregnant and struggling with a creative block, JoAnna Novak becomes obsessed with the enigmatic abstract expressionist painter Agnes Martin. She is drawn to the contradictions in Martin's life as well as her art-the soft and exacting brushstrokes she employs for grid-like compositions that are both rigid and dreamy. But what most calls to JoAnna is Martin's dedication to her work in the face of paranoid schizophrenia.Uneasy with the changes her pregnant body is undergoing, JoAnna relapses into damaging old habits and thought patterns. When she confides in her doctor that she's struggling with depression and suicidal ideation, he tells her she must stop being so selfish, given she has a baby on the way, and start taking antidepressants. Appalled by his patronizing tone and disregard of her mental health history, JoAnna instead turns to Martin for guidance, adopting the artist's doctrine of joyful solitude and isolation.JoAnna heads to Taos, where Martin lived for decades, and gives herself three weeks to model her hermetic existence- phone off, email off, no talking to her husband, no touching the dog. Out of a deep, solitary engagement with a remarkable artist's body of work emerges an entirely new way for JoAnna to relate to the contradictions of her own body and face up to the joys and challenges of impending motherhood. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.

Hardcover. Condition: new. Hardcover. NATIONAL BESTSELLER2023 Barnes & Noble Discover Prize WinnerWinner of the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction A four-year-old Mikmaq girl goes missing from the blueberry fields of Maine, sparking a mystery that will haunt the survivors, unravel a family, and remain unsolved for nearly fifty years"A stunning debut about love, race, brutality, and the balm of forgiveness." People, A Best New BookJuly 1962. A Mikmaq family from Nova Scotia arrives in Maine to pick blueberries for the summer. Weeks later, four-year-old Ruthie, the familys youngest child, vanishes. She is last seen by her six-year-old brother, Joe, sitting on a favorite rock at the edge of a berry field. Joe will remain distraught by his sisters disappearance for years to come. In Maine, a young girl named Norma grows up as the only child of an affluent family. Her father is emotionally distant, her mother frustratingly overprotective. Norma is often troubled by recurring dreams and visions that seem more like memories than imagination. As she grows older, Norma slowly comes to realize there is something her parents arent telling her. Unwilling to abandon her intuition, she will spend decades trying to uncover this family secret. For readers of The Vanishing Half and Woman of Light, this showstopping debut by a vibrant new voice in fiction is a riveting novel about the search for truth, the shadow of trauma, and the persistence of love across time."A harrowing tale of Indigenous family separation . . . [Peters] excels in writing characters for whom we cant help rooting . . . With The Berry Pickers, Peters takes on the monumental task of giving witness to people who suffered through racist attempts of erasure like her Mikmaw ancestors." The New York Times Book Review Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.