Fourteen stories, many of which appeared in the New Yorker. In "Buying a Pumpkin," a father struggles with three children after his wife leaves him, in "Research, " college girls draw up a list of boys with whom to lose their virginity.

THE MAN WHO LEFT is about the importance of fathers. It's about the men who leave, and the men who stay. It's a familiar story. Father leaves his wife and children and never looks back. Theresa Weir was five when her father left his family for a better life with a wealthy socialite. Many years passed with only occasional and grudging contact by Theresa's father. When Theresa married into a successful farm family, her father resurfaced, but she couldn't help but be suspicious of h...

A charming and bittersweet first novel, set in the 1980's, about falling in love and marrying your best friend, then divorcing because you both have gently drifted apart, only to discover too late that you made a mistake that can’t be fixed because the love of your life now has a fatal brain tumor. Yellin will win you over with her keen eye, warm wit and heartbreaking story.

“Wickedly funny and always movingly illuminating, thanks to kick-ass storytelling and a poet's ear.” –Oprah.comThe New York Times bestselling, hilarious tale of Mary Karr’s hardscrabble Texas childhood that Oprah.com calls the best memoir of a generation.The Liars’ Club took the world by storm and raised the art of the memoir to an entirely new level, bringing about a dramatic revival of the form. Karr’s comic childhood in...

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...

In this searing and darkly witty memoir, Wendy Lawless recounts her unconventional and often heartbreaking childhood with a glamorous but unstable, alcoholic, and suicidal mother—a real-life blend of Holly Golightly and Mommie Dearest—and the resilience that allowed her to survive.Georgann Rea didn’t bake cookies or attend PTA meetings. She wore mink, smoked Dunhills from a silver holder, and moved through 1960s Manhattan society with icy elegance and reckless aban...

**Written by two former nannies, Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus, The Nanny Diaries deftly punctures the glamour of Manhattan's upper class.Now a major motion picture starring Scarlett Johansson and Laura Linney.**Wanted:One young woman to take care of four-year-old boy. Must be cheerful, enthusiastic and selfless--bordering on masochistic. Must relish sixteen-hour shifts with a deliberately nap-deprived preschooler. Must love getting thrown up on, literall...

*Why did the chicken cross the road?Knock, knock. Who's there?What do you get when you...?*As kids guess the answers, they're sure to get the giggles! With this book, little ones will look forward to sharing the jokes with parents, teachers, and siblings--and even coming up with some variations of their own! In addition to hundreds of rib-tickling jokes, readers will love:Head-scratching brain teasersFunny knock-knock jokesHysterica...

“We are all walking around this city with our hearts sadly swimming in our chests, like dying fish on the surface of a still pond. It’s enough to make you give up entirely.” —from Instant LoveBut we don’t give up. We keep trying. We’re either too stupid to learn from our mistakes or we honestly believe that the next time will be different; it’s hard to say which. Driven by the mad hopefulness that is part of the human condition, we are constantly falling i...

In an age of hookups and cybersex, who has time for a little romance? For all those who think love’s gone the way of the 8-track tape comes a collection of new gay fiction designed to reignite their belief in love and romance. Follow the travails of a dog walker enchanted with his new client, a restaurant owner who catches the eye of his most loyal customer, a blind date fix-up, and other seekers of the lost flame as they stumble upon romance and a possible chance at love. Showcasing new w...

Up Up Up heralds the arrival of a writer of astonishing range, compassion, and acuity. In this stunning short story collection, Julie Booker grabs the reins from writers like Lydia Millet and Miranda July and takes off at full speed, and in directions all her own. A pair of plus-sized friends make tracks for a kayaking trip in Alaska. A woman vacations with her parents at a Texas trailer park, wondering why she can't meet a man. A worldly member of a tour group selects sacrifices from amon...

In this heartbreakingly beautiful book of disillusioned intimacy and persistent yearning, beloved and celebrated author Andre Dubus III explores the bottomless needs and stubborn weaknesses of people seeking gratification in food and sex, work and love.In these linked novellas in which characters walk out the back door of one story and into the next, love is "dirty"—tangled up with need, power, boredom, ego, fear, and fantasy. On the Massachusetts coast north of Boston, a controlli...