Religion brings some people peace and contentment. For Tom Larsen, his Catholic faith is the wellhead of his torment and misery. He learns early that his sexual feelings are seriously and hopelessly disordered. To act on them is a grievous sin that will gain him the same eternal damnation as murder. Seeing no other choice, he becomes a religious brother to escape his lust and to find God. Instead he finds himself and loses sight of God altogether. Inspired by a true story, Holy Hell paints...

From scary to heartwarming and hilarious, an assortment of behind-the-scenes, true stories about life as an undertaker.From shoot-outs at funerals to dead men screaming and runaway corpses, undertakers have plenty of unusual stories to tell—and a special way of telling them.In this macabre and moving compilation, funeral directors across the country share their most embarrassing, jaw-dropping, irreverent, and deeply poignant stories about life at death’s do...

The Pulitzer Prize–winning author's "astonishing" debut novel, about a son's struggle to find his own identity and integrity ( The New York Times).Michael Chabon, author of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Moonglow, and The Yiddish Policeman's Union, is one of the most acclaimed talents in contemporary fiction. The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, published when Chabon was just twenty-five, is the beautifully crafted d...

From This American Life alum David Rakoff comes a hilarious collection that single-handedly raises self-deprecation to an art form. Whether impersonating Sigmund Freud in a department store window during the holidays, climbing an icy mountain in cheap loafers, or learning primitive survival skills in the wilds of New Jersey, Rakoff clearly demonstrates how he doesn’t belong–nor does he try to.In his debut collection of essays, Rakoff uses his razor-sharp wit and snarky hum...

In this collection of twenty-one unforgettable stories, Joyce Carol Oates explores the mysterious private lives of men and women with vivid, unsparing precision and sympathy. By turns interlocutor and interpreter, magician and realist, she dissects the psyches of ordinary people and their potential for good and evil with chilling understatement and lasting power.

From the author to the reader:Show-and-Tell was the very best part of school for me, both as a student and as a teacher.As a kid, I put more into getting ready for my turn to present than I put into the rest of my homework. Show-and-Tell was real in a way that much of what I learned in school was not. It was education that came out of my life experience.As a teacher, I was always surprised by what I learned from these amateur hours. A kid I...

A touching memoir of life with an alcoholic father who secretly works with the CIA, a dark pilgrimage through the valley of depression and addiction, and finding a faith to redeem and a strength to forgive."This is a record of my life as I remember it—but more importantly, as I felt it."At the age of sixteen, Ian Morgan Cron was told by his mother that his father, a motion picture executive, worked with the CIA in Europe. This astonishing revelatio...

In the newest edition of Best Gay Stories, editor Steve Berman has selected confessions and stories that range in scope from “S”—sensational—to “XL”—extra-liberating: a personal remembrance of the Stonewall Riots; a tale of awkward first love; the allure of Tadzio for not only Gustav von Aschenbach but every reader of Thomas Mann; the wisdom of Auntie Mame. 21 stories in all.

**White's poised yet scalding autobiographical novel is the story of a young man's coming of age in 1950s and 60s America."With intelligence, candor, humor--and anger--White explores the most insidious aspects of oppression.... An impressive novel."--Washington Post book World**The country has no room for a scholarly teenager with guilty but insatiable stirrings toward other men. Moving from a Midwestern college to the Stonewall Tavern on the night of the first gay...

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 ...

With sharp wit, self-deprecating humor, and penetrating honesty, New York Times journalist Dave Itzkoff turns a keen eye on his life with the mysterious, maddening, much-loved man of whom he writes, “for the first eight years of my life I seem to have believed he was the product of my imagination.”Itzkoff’s father was the man who lumbered home at night and spent hours murmuring to his small son about his dreams and hopes for the boy’s future, and the fears and failures of ...

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...