Envisioned as a “nocturne,” Steve Amick’s playful, multilayered novel expansively retells Eugene Field’s famed verse “Wynken, Blynken, and Nod.”In the fishing village of Scheveningen in 1889, three men build and secretly launch an unorthodox fishing vessel, departing from the long tradition of netting herring using massive boats and large crews. Collaborating in this venture are Wyn van Winkel, a cavalier joker and opium addict currently AWOL from the Aceh War in S...

In his utterly charming story of a World War II veteran and an enterprising pinup girl, Steve Amick has created a beautifully understated love letter to an America of harder times and simpler choices.It's 1944, and Wink Dutton, a former illustrator for Yank and Stars and Stripes, arrives in Chicago after an injury to his drawing hand gets him discharged. Renting a room above the camera shop run by Sal Chesterton—the wife of Wink's buddy, still stationed in the Phi...

An 11-year-old boy finds his dad's gun and rushes to a deadly stand off at the mall. "Backup" by Rick Mofina is the 2,300-word, gut-wrenching short story that was nominated for Canada's top literary prize for crime fiction, the Arthur Ellis Award, in the category of Best Short Story, presented by the Crime Writers of Canada. "Backup" received further acclaim when it was named a finalist for a Best Short Story Award by The International Thriller Writers. It is one of three gripping tales in...

“Nobody—nobody—has produced a better parable about the condition of the national consciousness at century’s end.”—The Boston GlobeAn enduringly brilliant novel of trial and triumph set in America in the 1920s, from New York Times bestselling author Paul Auster“A charmer pure and simple . . . Nothing less than the story of America itself.”—Jonathan Yardley, The Washington PostPaul ...

Greg Rucka has earned the kind of reputation that all thriller writers envy: his crime fiction grabs readers by the throat and compels them to read as if their own lives were at stake. Now, in an electrifying departure, Rucka creates a new kind of hero: a damaged young woman in free fall who’s not only in danger--but dangerous.A Fistful of RainMim Bracca is riding the fast lane straight off the end of the world. Now she’s coming home without a job, without ...

"Marry me."Hope Harrell didn't know what to expect when she confronted the town's rugged sheriff with a marriage proposal—but she knew he was her only hope. After the death of her ex-fiancé, Hope knew she wouldn't be able to hide the growing swell of her belly much longer. If she wanted to protect her child from money-hungry relatives, she needed to act fast. She needed a daddy for her baby, and who better than Lyon Teague?Lyon had weathered many storms, but nothing had prepa...

A bear climbs onto a cabin's deck, presses his nose to the sliding door. Inside, a young woman stands to face him. She comes closer, and closer yet, until only the glass stands between them . . .The year is 1981, Reagan is in the White House, and the country is stalled in a recession. Cressida Hartley, a gifted Ph.D. student in economics, moves into her parents' shabby A-frame cabin in the Sierras to write her dissertation. In her most intimate and emotionally compelling no...

Think you’ve have some outrageous dating horror stories? You don't have anything on Shallon Lester.Spunky Shallon Lester has accumulated more than her fair share of embarrassing stories. In this collection of hilarious essays, she chronicles her dorky, daring, and awkward journey from waitress at the ninth circle of hell known as Houston's Time Square restaurant, to columnist at one of New York's leading gossip magazines, to MTV reality star, gleefully weaving in stories o...

"Breezy . . . juicy . . . irresistible" this memoir from a former Rolling Stone reporter is "as entertaining as the megastars she has built a career on profiling" ( Entertainment Weekly).New Jersey in the 1980s had everything Jancee Dunn wanted: trips down the shore, Bruce Springsteen, a tantalizing array of malls, and, especially, her family. But one night she met a girl who worked at Rolling Stone magazine in New York City. To Jancee, who visited...

Like Kofi Annan, Larry Miller is one of the most irresistible comic personalities working today. Known for years as an actor, writer, comedian, and sexual pioneer, he's gained a new following as a cultural commentator and frequent guest on political shows. Now, in Spoiled Rotten America, he fixes his gaze on what's funny about our daily lives—which includes, roughly speaking, everything. From middle-aged drinking ("When you're in your twenties, you can drink all night and bungee-jump off a...

Detroit PI Amos Walker must find a missing movie fan before the credits start to roll—"Sharp and energetic . . . a joy from start to finish" ( Chicago Tribune).What could be more innocent than watching old movies? For Neil Catalin, a wealthy man with a happy home, old-fashioned pictures were a hobby that became an obsession. But he wasn't watching The Wizard of Oz. Crime movies were his passion, the sort where life is cheap and death is free, and ...

From the national bestselling author of Birds of America comes “a brilliant collection” (The Philadelphia Inquirer) of eight exquisite stories of men and women stumbling through their daily existence.In Like Life, Lorrie Moore’s men and women, unsettled and adrift and often frightened, can’t quite understand how they arrived at their present situations. Harry has been reworking a play for years in his apartment near Times Square in New Yo...