A pro softball player, an alcoholic husband, a drug deal out of town, and buried treasure—the postmodern and vibrantly pulpy debut novel from Hob BrounThe heroine of Odditorium is Tildy Soileau, a professional softball player stuck in a down-and-out marriage in South Florida. Leaving her husband to his own boozy inertia, she jumps at the chance to travel to New York with Jimmy Christo, only recently released from a mental institution, and make some much-ne...

After a family tragedy, a man chases consolation—or is it oblivion?—by traveling through some seedy locales of place and spiritEarly on in Hob Broun's second novel, the mother of the unnamed narrator, a failed actress, commits suicide by putting her head through a television. That fact, together with our hero's desire for his ex-girlfriend's older sister, prompts a radical departure as he quits his job cataloging old television shows and sets off on a westward journ...

An "extraordinary" novel of five friends coming of age in 1960s New York City, from a New York Times–bestselling, Academy Award–winning author ( The Plain Dealer).William Goldman, the versatile author who gave us classic thrillers like Marathon Man, the immortal comedy of The Princess Bride, and the infamous Hollywood tell-all Adventures in the Screen Trade, offers a beautiful and sweeping novel inspired by his own coming...

Pat Conroy’s New York Times–bestselling coming-of-age novel about a son’s struggle to escape the domineering expectations of his volatile military father.Marine Col. Bull Meecham commands his home like a soldiers’ barracks. Cold and controlling, but also loving, Bull has complicated relationships with each member of his family—in particular, his eldest son, Ben.A born athlete who desperately seeks his father’s approval, Ben is determined to break o...

Grau’s Pulitzer Prize–winning classic, about the racial prejudice and long-buried secrets that threaten to destroy a distinguished Southern familyThe Howland dynasty began after the War of 1812, when a young Tennessee solider fighting for Andrew Jackson settled in Alabama. Over the next century, the Howlands accumulated a fortune, fought for Secession, helped rebuild the South, and established themselves as one of the most respected families in the state. But that ...

From the author of the wildly controversial books Liar and Paul's Case comes one of the most anticipated — and perhaps, in some quarters, feared — books of the year. This is author Lynn Crosbie at her most honest, most cutting, most hilarious, and most heartbreaking. The stories told here are at once a cache, a repository, of a seven-year period in the author's life; and, too, a gymnasium, a place where she can flex her prodigious wit and her dazzling stash of literary tricks Deft with mat...

The second volume of collected short fiction from the New York Times bestselling author of The Tortilla Curtain, featuring fifty-eight short stories that “mix brilliance with high-concept pyrotechnics” (Los Angeles Times), including fourteen never-before-published tales“Whether he’s writing about survival in a wasted environment or people and animals coming unhinged, Boyle never fails to captivate, to deliver his ideas within the ...

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • The first volume of collected short fiction from the award–winning author of The Tortilla Curtain, featuring sixty-eight “varied, clever, and delightful” (The Chicago Tribune) short stories, including seven never-before-published tales“Each [story hops] with manic energy . . . at his vaulting, imaginative best Boyle suggests the bastard child of Flannery O’Connor and Monty Python.”—The Miami Her...

Thirteen “dazzling” (Associated Press) and “wonderfully wicked” (USA TODAY) stories from #1 New York Times bestselling author Stephen King.A book salesman with a grievance picks up a mute hitchhiker, not knowing the silent man in the passenger seat listens altogether too well. An exercise routine on a stationary bicycle takes its rider on a captivating—and then terrifying—journey. A blind girl works a miracle with a kiss and the touch of her hand....

Finalist for the Pulitzer PrizeFinalist for the National Book AwardFinalist for the National Book Critics Circle AwardWinner of the Howell’s Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Letters“A great American novel” (San Francisco Chronicle) that spans five decades of American history, following the intimate lives of the men and women who lived through them.It b...

Texas attorney Billy Bob Holland must confront the past in order to save his illegitimate son from a murder conviction in this brilliant, fast-paced thriller from beloved New York Times bestselling author James Lee Burke.Lucas Smothers, nineteen and from the wrong end of town, has been arrested for the rape and murder of a local girl. His lawyer, former Texas Ranger Billy Bob Holland, is convinced of Lucas’s innocence—but proving it means unearthing the tr...

Playfulness, spare elegance, and wit epitomize the poetry of Billy Collins.With his distinct voice and accessible language, America’s two-term Poet Laureate has opened the door to poetry for countless people for whom it might otherwise remain closed.Like the present book’s title, Collins’s poems are filled with mischief, humor, and irony, “Poetry speaks to all people, it is said, but here I would like to address / only those in my own time zone”–but also with quiet observation, int...