David Lehman, a poet of wit, ingenuity, and formidable skill, draws upon his heritage as a grandson of Holocaust victims and offers a stirring autobiographical collection of poems that is his most am
On an entirely normal, beautiful fall day in Chester's Mill, Maine, the town is inexplicably and suddenly sealed off from the rest of the world by an invisible force field. Planes crash into it and fa
Palmer's extraordinary knowledge and boundless love of music were evident in all his writing. He was an authority on rock & roll, blues, jazz, punk, avant-garde, and world music -- often discovering
Francesca Rivabuona is fifty and exhausted by the monotony of her life. Stuck in a stale marriage with grown children who have long since fled the coop, and desperate to escape the endless cycle of U
Chuck Klosterman has chronicled rock music, film, and sports for almost fifteen years. He's covered extreme metal, extreme nostalgia, disposable art, disposable heroes, life on the road, life through
During the early years of her career, while struggling to "keep body and soul apart" (as she ruefully put it later), Dorothy Parker wrote more than three hundred poems and verses for a variety of pop
Until the age of ten, Abby Sher was a happy child in a fun-loving, musical family. But when her father and favorite aunt pass away, Abby fills the void of her loss with rituals: kissing her father's
Malalai Joya has been called "the bravest woman in Afghanistan." At a constitutional assembly in Kabul in 2003, she stood up and denounced her country's powerful NATO-backed warlords. She was twenty-
The Monster in the Box is the latest addition to Ruth Rendell's classic and beguiling Inspector Wexford series. In this new book, Rendell takes Inspector Wexford back to his days as a young policeman
From the award-winning and critically acclaimed author of Judgment of Paris and To Cork or Not To Cork comes a delightful, entertaining, and informative exploration of the thriving world of wine tour
Each week, the writers of The A.V. Club issue a slightly slanted pop-culture list filled with challenging opinions (Is David Bowie's "Young Americans" nearly ruined by saxophone?) and fascinating fac
Jeannette Walls grew up with parents whose ideals and stubborn nonconformity were both their curse and their salvation. Rex and Rose Mary Walls had four children. In the beginning, they lived like nom
Jeannette Walls's The Glass Castle was "nothing short of spectacular" (Entertainment Weekly). Now she brings us the story of her grandmother -- told in a voice so authentic and compelling that the bo
Audrey Niffenegger's spectacularly compelling second novel opens with a letter that alters the fate of every character. Julia and Valentina Poole are semi-normal American twenty-year-olds with seemin
For ten years, Morbid Curiosity was a one-of-a-kind underground magazine that gained a devoted following for its celebration of absurd, grotesque, and unusual tales -- all true -- submitted from cont
A powerful and moving account of four young women from Mexico who have lived most of their lives in the United States and attend the same high school. Two of them have legal documentation and two do
Award-winning poet David Wagoner and renowned editor David Lehman present the twenty-second edition of the Best American Poetry series—"a ‘best’ anthology that really lives up to its title" (Chicago T
David Wagoner writes about regular lives with plain grace and transcendent humanity, and the seventy-five poems he has chosen for the 2009 edition of The Best American Poetry grapple with life, celeb
Introducing Conor Bard, the fortysomething New York City homicide detective from precinct One Eight in Hell's Kitchen who dreams of becoming a rock star and finally finding the right woman, as he tra
What do dogs know? How do they think? The answers will surprise and delight you as Alexandra Horowitz, a cognitive scientist, explains how dogs perceive their daily worlds, each other, and that other
By turns harrowing, moving, and ultimately redemptive, this is a war story -- a war that rages out of control on the streets of the United States, claiming the lives of our loved ones and neighbors.
Returning to the territory of "Brokeback Mountain" (in her first volume of Wyoming Stories) and Bad Dirt (her second), National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize winner Annie Proulx delivers a stunning a
Pakistan is the sixth most populous country in the world. It is the only Islamic state to have nuclear weapons. Its border with Afghanistan extends over one thousand miles and is the likely hideout o
"A Buccaneer-Scholar is anyone whose love of learning is not muzzled or shackled by any institution or authority; whose mind is driven to wander and find its own place in the world."The volatility of
Today's National Football League is more successful, more exciting, and more popular than ever. But the game in the twenty-first century is also ruled by a constant quest for more money. Super Bowl-w
There are 206 bones in the human body. Forensic anthropologists know them intimately, can read in them stories of brief or long lives, and use them to reconstruct every kind of violent end. The twelf
Time is running out for the Islamic Republic and the Bible Belt, the two warring nations that arose when the former United States split apart after an economic collapse left tens of millions unemploy
What's the difference between a cop and Kevin Maher? Kevin doesn't have a badge. And he doesn't play by the rules. Cop Without A Badge tracks confidential informant Kevin Maher as he helps the NYPD,
"I fell in love with a prideful, tense bundle of muscle and sinew that stood seventeen inches high. You would see a small brown dog; I saw perfection."So begins the story of Kate Jennings's unexpecte
Long before Islamic fundamentalism became a household phrase, Hanif Kureishi began visiting mosques in London and witnessing the flocks of young Asians -- many of them second-generation immigrants --
Ruby is the youngest child in the tightly knit Bronstein family, a sensitive, observant girl who looks up to her older brothers and is in awe of her stern but gentle father, a Holocaust survivor whos
JONATHAN AMES'S LATEST BOOK, his eighth, is a hilarious, erotically charged, and insightful collection of articles, essays, cartoons, and short stories. With an HBO series based on this collection's
Oliver Clay is a dreamer, content wherever he is as long as he has his sketchpad, paints and brushes. After a year in New York City attending art school, he escapes to the wide-open oasis of North Da
Sire Galan has forbidden his servant and lover Firethorn to follow him to war, but she disobeys. When the army of Corymb sets sail for Incus, she is aboard a ship of the fleet, gambling on Galan's we
From New York Times bestselling author Greg Iles comes his most electrifying thriller yet. The Devil's Punchbowl reveals a world of depravity, sex, violence, and the corruption of a Southern town.As
As a child and teenager, Nathan Rabin viewed pop culture as a life-affirming form of escape. Today, pop culture is his life. For more than a decade, he's served as head writer for A.V. Club, the ente
CRUSHER McNASH is the police force's most fearless detective, a barrel-chested bull terrier with a biscuit-thin temper and a barbed-wire tongue.CASSIUS LAP is the finest agent in the Feline Bureau of
When Belle Lee, a vivacious, tart-tongued daughter of Mobile, Alabama, decides that the only way she'll ever make a name for herself as a journalist is to leave the family paper and head to New York,