National Book Award finalist Karen E. Bender returns with stunning speculative stories of parents and children, together and apart, surviving near-future dystopias that feel all-too-possible—and realities that can be even strangerGrounded in both the contemporary United States and a variety of dystopias, celebrated author Karen E. Bender’s otherworldly collection examines the evolving dynamics of the nuclear family during adolescence, motherhood, the empty nest, an...

This collection of stories set in contemporary America--a finalist for the National Book Award--herald a work of singular literary merit by an important writer at the height of her power.We think about it every day, sometimes every hour: Money. Who has it. Who doesn't. How you get it. How you don't.In Refund, Bender creates an award-winning collection of stories that deeply explore the ways in which money and the estimation of value affect the live...

A tour de force of literary craft and emotional resonance, Like Normal People charts a family constellation that revolves around an off-kilter center: Lena, who is forty-eight but mentally locked in childhood. Moving deftly between present and past, the novel follows Lena's day-long escape from her residential home with her troubled twelve-year-old niece. While this odd couple takes refuge on a honky-tonk southern California beach, Lena's widowed mother, Ella, goes in search of them. In th...

**#1 New York Times bestseller!In this unforgettable collection of essays, acclaimed humorist David Sedaris lifts the corner of ordinary life, revealing the absurdity teeming below its surface.**Sedaris plays in the snow with his sisters. He goes on vacation with his family. He gets a job selling drinks. He attends his brother's wedding. He mops his sister's floor. He gives directions to a lost traveler. He eats a hamburger. He has his blood sugar tested. It all so...

For a woman burned by love, a Blue Ridge Christmas is more than a getaway—it’s a new beginning—in the USA Today bestselling author’s romance novella.Stevie Franklin is thrilled to spend the holiday season helping her best friend Sunny launch her new greenhouse business in Blue Hollow Falls, Virginia. A visit to the quaint mountain town will be a welcome distraction from her recent bad luck with men. But while Sunny’s home is under renovation, Stevie must s...

The third graphic novel adventure featuring Dean Koontz’s hugely popular character, Odd Thomas – the small-town fry-cook who can see the dead.Odd Thomas’s bestselling author friend, Ozzie Boone, asks Odd to pay a call on an old friend: Hollywood producer Nedra Nolan, who has just bought a dilapidated mansion in Pico Mundo and hopes to make it her retirement hideaway.However, mysterious occurrences – windows opening of their own accord, rooms going cold, and chandeliers cras...

When Alice was nine years old, she and her father - a beloved school librarian - made a promise to read aloud together for 100 consecutive nights. Upon reaching their goal, they celebrated over pancakes, but it was clear that neither wanted to let go of what had become their reading ritual. They decided to continue what became known as The Streak for as long as they possibly could.From L. Frank Baum to Dickens to J.K. Rowling to Shakespeare, Alice's father read to her ever...

#3 in the Women of Strength DiariesAfter the death of her father, Dana Morrison noticed that her mother’s house was becoming cluttered. First she saved grocery bags, then newspapers, and empty boxes. In no time flat, her house was filled with junk, junk, and more junk! Dana made the mistake of cleaning house, but that just made matters worse when her mother decided that her trash was more valuable to her than her daughter.Tonya Thomas writes gripping storie...

Despite her forty years and a successful career as a rock journalist, Jancee Dunn still feels like a teenager, especially around her parents and sisters. Looking around, Dunn realizes that she’s not alone in this regression: Her friends, all with successful jobs, marriages, and families of their own, still feel like kids around their moms and dads, too. That gets Dunn to thinking: Do we ever really grow up?Why Is My Mother Getting a Tattoo? explores this phenomenon...

"She goes a long way with her book to prove that humor is the best -- possibly the only -- way to keep the world on an even keel."CHICAGO SUN-TIMESRemember the things Mother used to say? Erma Bombeck remembers them all and now she's using them on her own kids! With clever illustrations by Bil Keane, these really funny, too-true observations on family and kids and why it shouldn't work but does, is a wonderful antitdote to the daily problems and crises that every family faces....

Since the publication of Self-Help, her first collection of stories, Lorrie Moore has been hailed as one of the greatest and most influential voices in American fiction. Her ferociously funny, soulful stories tell of the gulf between men and women, the loneliness of the broken-hearted and the yearned-for, impossible intimacies we crave. Gathered here for the first time in a beautiful hardback edition is the complete stories along with three new and previously unpublished in book form: Pape...

Jennifer has always been a wallflower, so when Mike Palmer flatters her—and asks her out—she feels on top of the world. But Mike's a sports nut, and soon Jennifer feels like she's playing second fiddle to every sport televised. Her ultimatum has Mike reconsidering their relationship. But it's after they elope when Jennifer’s problems really begin and she discovers the man she thought she’d known may have ulterior motives for making her his bride.Tonya Thomas writes stories about is...