'I wake up and I have to make the right choice,' he said.Master-stylist Ben Marcus returns with a wonder-cabinet of brain-rearranging stories. From the horrifyingly strange to the deeply touching, each story is a literary masterclass unlikely to leave the reader unchanged.From parent/child relationships thrown agonisingly off kilter, to intensely moving scenarios of dependence and emotional crisis; from left-alone bodies to new scientific frontiers,...

The story of the simple skateboard is part thriller, part underground, underdog success tale. It’s chock-full of innovations, far-out graphic artistry, and ever-more-incredible hot-dogging feats. And the story’s told in this book with contributions from the stars themselves—Tony Hawk, Stacey Peralta, Jeff Ho, the Dogtown Z-Boys, and more. Beautifully illustrated with historical posters, ads, and memorabilia along with new action photography, studio skateboard shots, and unique portraits of...

Ben Marcus has received numerous awards for his groundbreaking fiction, including a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and three Pushcart Prizes. In The Flame Alphabet, Marcus creates a chilling world where the speech of children is killing their parents. After being forced to leave their daughter Esther to fend for herself, Sam and Claire end up at a government lab intent on creating non-lethal speech. But when Sam discovers the truth about what's going on there, he realizes reuni...

The short story is a barometer for the state and shape of literature. New American Stories presents the boldest, most innovative and most resonant fiction coming out of the American literary scene.Ben Marcus, author of The Flame Alphabet and Leaving the Sea, has here curated an anthology that gives the lay of the literary land. From established masters of the form like Don DeLillo and Lydia Davis to neoteric trailblazers such as Rebecca Curtis and Rachel ...

Whether you’re a beginner trying to get started or an experienced surfer looking to take it to the next level, The Surfing Handbook gives you the tips you need to maximize your performance on the water, with guidance on training and conditioning, technique and style, safety and etiquette, and gear. Written by veteran pro surfing journalist Ben Marcus, this guide is illustrated with instructional photos and drawings, providing step-by-step instructions, background history—as well a...

The history of the surfboard is one of innovation---innovation that has in turn shaped the sport of surfing. The Art of the Surfboard follows this history, from the first "wave-riding" redwood planks crafted by ancient Hawaiians to the vacuum-sealed, lightweight, "plastic fantastic" technological marvels of today.Beautifully illustrated with historical prints and engravings, as well as the latest surf photography and detailed closeups, this book documents the surfboards evolution a...

This book tells the story of how fossil fuel use is altering the climate of our planet and adversely affecting the Earth's ecosystems and our ability to produce food, both of which are necessary to sustain civilization. The book addresses common questions regarding the science of climate change and why we should trust the warnings of climate scientists, rather than those who try to cast doubt on the science of climate change. To reinforce this, the first part of the book describes ...

Stark and vibrant, the two halves of this sutured book expose the Frankenstein-like scars of the assemblage we call “human”In “Another Governess” a woman in a decaying manor tries to piece together her own story. In “The Least Blacksmith” a man cannot help but fail his older brother as they struggle to run their father’s forge.Each of the stories stands alone, sharing neither characters nor settings. But together, they ask the same question: What are the wa...

With over three hundred new and previously published short stories as well as three novellas, The Collected Stories of Diane Williams brings together distilled works of “unsettling brilliance” (Vanity Fair) that have rewritten the rules of American short fiction.From Ben Marcus’ introduction to The Collected Stories of Diane Williams:“Diane Williams has spent her long, prolific career concocting fictions of perfect strangeness, mo...

Haunting in their tone, brilliant in their images––very like fantastic presences moving across glass––the twenty–one fictions in this startling debut collection seem both inexplicably familiar and like no writing we have seen before.The opening story leads us through a kaleidoscopic series of thoughts and memories around the act of writing a letter. Another, an intricately structured document of documents––household inventories, daily calendars, property deeds, an announcement––sug...

Organic Gardening Plan: Discover the Ultimate Way to Eating Healthy Through Organic Growing and GardeningToday, organic gardening has become known by many titles including chemical-free gardening, earth-friendly gardening, and organic, but the reality of it is that although we use the term “chemical free” to mean “Organic”, that only applies if you use no fertilizers or pesticides when creating and growing your garden. So, basically, organic gardening requires it to be done naturally witho...

Seek Him First: A Guide on How to Seek God and Put Him in the Center of Your Life Have no doubt that God has something fantastic planned for you. Despite the fact that this does not really suggest that every day should be a parade and circus, it does imply that you should live your life with a sense of general happiness. As stated in Psalm 63:7, "...since you have been my help, and under the shelter of your wings I shall scream with joy." In this audiobook, you will learn how to seek God a...