When his father leaves town, twelve-year-old Rodney Culver's mother takes up with Otis Dell, a fry cook at the local diner—and a well-known petty thief. While Rodney resists the man's influence at first, Otis soon draws the boy into his small-time criminal world. After a simple heist goes violently wrong, Rodney becomes an unwitting fugitive, swept away from his mother to the primitive mountain sanctuary of the mysterious Lester Fanning. But with Lester's skeptical lady friend in the way, ...

In June 1920, in Duluth, Minnesota, a mob of over 10,000 convened upon the police station, inflamed by the rumor that black circus workers had raped a white teenage girl—charges that would later be proven false. Three men were dragged from their cells and lynched in front of the cheering crowd.More than eighty years later, Warren Read—a fourth-grade teacher, devoted partner, and father to three boys—plugged his mother's maiden name into a computer search engine, then clicked on a l...

"One Simple Thingis fit to burst with grit, atmosphere, pathos and suspense. With his expertly paced second novel, Mr. Read invites comparisons to the crime masters of the mid-twentieth century--guys like Chandler, and Thompson, and Willeford."―Jonathan Evison"In Warren Read's stories, setting is a character, stealthy, lush, and full of hidden depths. The very air has texture, holding the characters tight as their small town worlds unfold. A twisting, twi...

A grown-up spy thriller for the 21st Century – Ross CoulthartBritish Intelligence operative Bella Butterfield has been dispatched to Tokyo for a very special purpose. Until recently, Japan seemed immune to the Islamic-inspired terror attacks that swept the world after 9/11. But the 2015 beheading of two Japanese aid workers in Syria changed everything.As the 2020 Tokyo Olympics approach, the race is on to establish a viable, outward-looking Japanese intelligence ag...

In the stillness of a pine grove, a wrecked car tells a story no one wants to hear.Red Miller has lived long enough to know when someone is lying, especially his daughter, Gina. On an afternoon in early fall of 1979, Red gives Gina's boyfriend money he knows he won’t see again, then watches his daughter slip further away, wondering where it all went wrong. Five years later, a call from an Idaho deputy changes everything: Gina has vanished after a fatal car crash, a...

These historically grounded essays by Adolph Reed, Jr. and Kenneth W. Warren incorporate essential historical, contemporary, and literary perspectives on Black cultural criticism to explore the full portrait of racial injustice and inequality in America.Taking up such topics as the evolving politics of New Orleans before and after Hurricane Katrina and novels by Toni Morrison and Colson Whitehead, this book engages with the Black Radical Tradition, Afropessimism, antiblackness, rac...

Are you constantly absorbing other people’s emotions… and feeling drained by it?Do you sense things others miss—yet struggle to explain why?Does being “too sensitive” feel more like a curse than a gift?If this sounds familiar, you’re not broken. You’re an empath—and you’ve just never been shown how to handle it properly.Most empaths go through life overwhelmed, emotionally exhausted, and misunderstood. They give too much, say “yes” too oft...

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...

PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • PEN/FAULKNER AWARD WINNER • INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER • From one of his generation’s greatest writers comes the sequel to The Sportswriter, starring Frank Bascombe, who “has earned a place beside Willy Loman and Harry Angstrom in our literary landscape ... with a wry wit and a fin de siècle wisdom that is very much his own” (The New York Times Book Review).Frank Bascombe, in the aftermath of his divorce and the ruin of his c...

"An American Childhood more than takes the reader's breath away. It consumes you as you consume it, so that, when you have put down this book, you're a different person, one who has virtually experienced another childhood." — Chicago TribuneA book that instantly captured the hearts of readers across the country, An American Childhood is Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annie Dillard's poignant, vivid memoir of growing up in Pittsburgh in the 1950s and 60s.Dedicated to her pare...

In each of these tales master storyteller Richard Ford is drawn to the themes of intimacy, love, and their failures. An illicit visit to the Grand Canyon reveals a vastness even more profound; an exacting career woman celebrates Christmas with her adamantly post-nuclear family; a couple weekending in Maine try to recapture the ardour that has disappeared, both gradually and suddenly, from their lives; on a spring evening's drive, a young wife confesses to her husband the affair she had wit...

It's safe to say that world-famed speaker and author Og Mandino has as many friends as any man alive, thanks to his inspiring motivational lectures and his bestselling books. This new book is a special gift to all his friends, old and new, a book they may cherish above all the rest. Secrets for Success and Happiness is Og's beautifully written journal, an intimate record of his innermost thoughts and feelings, the heartwarming events of his day-to-day life.Whether he's writing in hi...