“Poignant, exquisite, and endlessly witty” — Kirkus Review (Starred Review)“People—the species defies logic!” reflects the protagonist of one of the dazzling, intricate stories in Visitations. In this latest collection from Lee Upton, characters navigate often bewildering situations, from the homeschooled girl trying to communicate telepathically with an injured man she finds on the beach to the experimental theater troupe (called the Community Playas) composed pr...

In the aftermath of a devastating epidemic, bodies marked with eerie patterns called withers become symbols of a painful past— a past many want to forget. Riatta, one of the marked, finds herself cast out, a survivor of controversial surgeries that saved her life but cost her everything else. Seeking refuge, she recovers in the home of a surgeon who once saved her. But when she learns his wife is pregnant, a shadow falls over this fragile sanctuary. Ruthless organ traffickers roam the stre...

Alternately chilling, funny, devastating, and hopeful, these twenty stories introduce us to a theater critic who winds up in a hot tub with the actress he routinely savages in reviews; a biographer who struggles to discover why a novelist stopped writing; a woman who searches through her past lives to recall a romantic encounter with the poet W. B. Yeats; a student who contends with her predatory professor; and the poignant scenario of the last satyr meeting his last woman.Writer-i...

A young woman living alone sees a mysterious older woman roaming the woods outside her house. As they strike up an unlikely friendship, the narrator finds herself questioning what she knows about love, friendship, and family.Lee Upton’s most recent books are Bottle the Bottles the Bottles the Bottles from the Cleveland State University Poetry Center (2015); The Tao of Humiliation: Stories, winner of the BOA Short Fiction Award, finalist for The Paterson Prize, and...

A kiss is never just a kiss—heat-seeking, information bearing, coded. In this inspired collection, poet and editor Diane Lockward has assembled over 100 poems about kisses written by many of our best contemporary poets. You’ll find kisses longed for, kisses auditioned, kisses rehearsed. Ritualistic kissing. Delicious kissing. Kissing that comforts the grieving. Kissing that blesses a union … Kisses in this anthology may be romantic or funny or comforting or erotic or mournful—and more … We...

Prolific author and political activist Upton Sinclair throws the upheaval of the early twentieth century into sharp relief in 100%: The Story of a Patriot. In a matter of instants, a bomb blast transmutes Peter Gudge's entire existence into chaos, and in the resulting pandemonium, he's forced to reexamine all of his values and beliefs.

Northern Appalachia is one of the most biodiverse regions on Earth and home to a broad range of ecological and human cultures. With A Literary Field Guide to Northern Appalachia, editors Todd Davis and Noah Davis recognize and celebrate this diversity and the fact that humans are storytelling creatures who develop relationships with their landscapes at the intersection of art and science.A companion volume to A Literary Field Guide to Southern Appalachia, this gui...

**From the author of Hell of a Book, a READ WITH JENNA TODAY SHOW BOOK CLUB PICK and a winner of The National Book Award."The Returned transforms a brilliant premise into an extraordinary and beautifully realized novel. My spine is still shivering from the memory of this haunting story. Wow." - Douglas Preston, #1 bestselling author of The Monster of FlorenceFrom the New York Times bestselling author of Hell of a Boo...

The internationally bestselling book of tongue-in-cheek poetry that set off a trend of feline funniness! Animal lovers will laugh out loud at the quirkiness of their feline friends with these insightful and curious poems from the singular minds of funny cats.The author of the internationally syndicated comic strip Sally Forth helps cats unlock their creative potential and explain their odd behavior to ignorant humans. With titles like "Who Is That on Your L...

Toronto in the twenty-first century: At night, a beacon on a lonely ancient lake, a drainage pond from the last ice age. In the daytime, a bulwark of glass, glinting in the radiant sun. Joe, Mary, and her cat, Sam, sit in a lakeside condo, trapped by a crazed, mysterious sniper. What has become of their lives? What has become of their city? What has become of their century? As the situation begins to unravel, Mary finds herself wondering, “What would Margaret Atwood do?”

This sophisticated, scary anthology collects the best horror fiction published between 1984 and 2005, one of horror’s most innovative eras. These exceptionally diverse stories, hand-picked by horror-expert editor Ellen Datlow, are tales of the subtly psychological, the unpredictably mischievous, and the disturbingly visceral.Here are classics, such as horror master Stephen King’s Chattery Teeth,” the tautly drawn account of a traveling salesman who unwisely picks up yet another hi...

"Angels: A book for self realization through angels and your personal guides-" is a quick-read."Synchronicity: Coincidence, Happening at the Same Time, Simultaneous" is a quick-read. Your free will is important, but it can also block help from your angels and guides. Unless you are totally aware of what is in your best interest, you could take too many wrong turns and end up in the wrong place; something that would not happen if you were in touch with your angels and guides-more im...