"Beautifully crafted stories [that] move effortlessly between worlds where people misstep into tragic loss and end up in a circus act, or maybe even in love." —Jonis Agee, author of The Bones of ParadiseThis outstanding collection of short stories tells the tale of a different kind of difference—one not set in the glittering lights of New York or Los Angeles, but in the grand and wide American Midwest. For Dave Madden's characters, their queerness is part o...

Why would someone want to create or own the mounted skin of a dead animal? That's the question Dave Madden explores in The Authentic Animal. Madden starts his journey with the life story of Carl Akeley, the father of modern taxidermy. Akeley started small by stuffing a canary, but by the end of his life he had created the astonishing Akeley Hall of African Mammals at The American Museum of Natural History. What Akeley strove for and what fascinates Madden is the attempt by the tax...

From one of the most revered Catholic periodicals in the world comes a treasury of Christmas stories that listeners will find both heartwarming and spiritually nourishing. With subjects that range from saints to single mothers, from Depression-era childhoods and poverty to times of great peace and prosperity, these stories remind us of miracle and mystery, of faith and transformation, of all that lives in the spirit of Christmas. Stories include:"Dad's Perfect Christmas Tree" by Da...

Thinking of a mid-career change? Downsized? Laid off? Or one of the many who took part in the great resignation? Sooner or later, we may face a time when we must make choices—important choices—about the future of our work lives. It's a big decision to make at any time, but significantly more important—even crucial—at the midpoint of one's career. You've worked hard to get where you are and have something at stake: a reputation, a good salary, and probably substantial benefits—to say nothin...

Welcome to the hilarious, strange, elegiac, outrageous world of David Sedaris!In Naked, Sedaris turns the mania for memoir on its ear, mining the exceedingly rich terrain of his life, his family, and his unique worldview-a sensibility at once take-no-prisoners sharp and deeply charitable.A tart-tongued mother does dead-on imitations of her young son's nervous tics to the great amusement of his teachers; a stint of Kerouackian wandering is undertake...

Discover a more lighthearted side of the funeral industry in this collection of real-life stories from the authors of Mortuary Confidential.Not knowing what to do, I sat on the church steps and waited. As the gravity of my failure began to well up in me, I began to cry . . . I Had Lost The Hearse!Funerals and the all the things that accompany them are traditionally somber, contemplative events in which the bereaved look to their undertaker...

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • “A raucous, whip-smart collection of stories featuring retro-feminist ladies who lunch.” —ElleMeet the women of American Housewife. They wear lipstick, pearls, and sunscreen, even when it’s cloudy. They casserole. They pinwheel. And then they kill a party crasher, carefully stepping around the body to pull cookies from the oven.Taking us from a haunted pre-war Manhattan apartment building to the unique initiation ritu...

The "hilarious" (New York Times Book Review) collection of short stories from the award-winning humorist Simon Rich includes the story that inspired the Seth Rogen comedy An American Pickle.Twenty years ago, Barney the Dinosaur told the nation's children they were special. We're still paying the price.From "one of the funniest writers in America" comes a collection of stories culled from the front lines of the millennial culture wars (Jimm...

Readers will be amused, comforted, and encouraged by stories about “nutty” families just like their own, and realize we all have the same family matters and what really matters is families. A quirky and fun holiday book and a great bridal shower or wedding gift!Nearly everyone thinks their own family is “nutty" or at least has one or two nuts. With 101 stories of wacky yet lovable relatives, funny foibles, and holiday meltdowns, Chicken Soup for the Soul: Famil...

In this debut novel, Peter is a simple man who lives by a simple truth--a person gains strength by leaning on his constants. To him, those constants are the factory where he works, the family he loves, and the God who sustains him. But when news of job cuts comes against the backdrop of an unexpected snowstorm, his life becomes filled with far more doubts than certainties.With humor and a gift for storytelling, Billy Coffey brings you along as he spends his snow day encountering fam...

Twenty one stories and one novella from Chuck Palahniuk, literature's favorite transgressive author, Make Something Up is a compilation that disturbs and delights in equal measure. In "Expedition," fans will be thrilled to find to see a side of Tyler Durden never seen before in a precursor story to Fight Club. And in other stories, the absurdity of both life and death are on full display; in "Zombies," the best and brightest of a high school prep school become tragically addicted ...

These poems topics range from hate crimes to playgrounds, from international conflict to hometowns, from falling in love to the desperation of loneliness. Gibsons work seizes us by the collar and hauls us inside some of her darkest moments, then releases us out the other side.