"Torday is a singular American writer with a big heart and a real love for the world. He has the rare gift for writing dynamic action scenes while being genuinely funny." —George Saunders Bluegrass musician, former journalist and editor, and now PhD in English, Mark Brumfeld has arrived at his thirties with significant debt and no steady prospects. His girlfriend Cassie—a punk bassist in an all-female band, who fled her Midwestern childhood for a new identity—finds work at a “new media” company. When Cassie refuses his marriage proposal, Mark leaves New York and returns to the basement of his childhood home in the Baltimore suburbs. Desperate and humiliated, Mark begins to post a series of online video monologues that critique Baby Boomers and their powerful hold on the job market. But as his videos go viral, and while Cassie starts to build her career, Mark loses control of what he began—with consequences that ensnare them in a matter of national security. Told through the perspectives of Mark, Cassie, and Mark’s mother, Julia, a child of the '60s whose life is more conventional than she ever imagined, Boomer1 is timely, suspenseful, and in every line alert to the siren song of endless opportunity that beckons and beguiles all of us.

The doomed hero of The Tragedy of Arthur is Arthur Phillips, a young man struggling with a larger than life father, a con artist who works wonders of deception but is a very unreliable parent. Arthur is raised in an enchanted world of smoke and mirrors where the only certain fact is his father's and beloved sister's shared love for the works of William Shakespeare, a love so pervasive that Arthur becomes a writer in a misguided bid to win their approval. Near the end of his life, Arthur's father shares with him a treasure that he has kept for half a century: a previously unknown play by Shakespeare, titled The Tragedy of Arthur. Arthur and his sister also inherit their father's mission, to see the play published and acknowledged as the Bard's last great gift to humanity. Unless, of course, it's their father's last and greatest deception.

"The literature of the twenty-first century will belong to Neuman." —Roberto Bolaño Searching for an inn, the enigmatic traveler Hans stops in a small city on the border between Saxony and Prussia. The next morning, Hans meets an old organ-grinder in the market square and immediately finds himself enmeshed in an intense debate—on identity and what it is that defines us—from which he cannot break free. Indefinitely stuck in Wandernburg until his debate with the organ-grinder is concluded, he begins to meet the various characters who populate the town, including a young freethinker named Sophie. Though she is engaged to be married, Sophie and Hans begin a relationship that defies contemporary mores about female sexuality and what can and cannot be said about it. Traveler of the Century is a deeply intellectual novel, chock-full of discussions about philosophy, history, literature, love, and translation. It is a book that looks to the past in order to have us reconsider the conflicts of our present. The winner of Spain's prestigious Alfaguara Prize and the National Critics Prize, Traveler of the Century marks the English-language debut of Andrés Neuman, a writer described by Roberto Bolaño as being "touched by grace."

1924. This book tells the tale of Percy Bysshe Shelley, whose life was singularly interesting and diverse. His friends unanimously testify that his character was one of gentleness, purity, generosity and strong affection. As a poet, he stands in the front rank and in some of his shorter poems he is unsurpassed. During his short life of 30 years, he was not the object of much severe judgment and his poetic power was recognized by only a few. Contents Part Keate's Way; The Home; The Confidant; The Neighbouring Pine; Quod Erat Demonstrandum; Timothy Shelley's Vigorous Dialectics; An Academy for Young Ladies; The Despotic Chain; A Very Young Couple; Hogg; First Encounter with Middle Age; Soap Bubbles; The Venerated Friend; Miss Hitchener; Harriet; Comparisons; and Second Incarnation of the Goddess. Contents Part A Six Weeks' Tour; The Pariahs; Godwin; Don Juan Conquered; Ariel and Don Juan; Graves in the Garden of Love; The Rules of the Game; Queen of Marble and Mud; The Roman Cemetery; Any Wife to Any Husband; The Cavaliere Servente; A Scandalous Letter; Lord Byron's Silence; Miranda; The Disciples; II Samuel The Refuge; Ariel Set Free; and Last Links.

The very best short stories and novellas from National Public Radio's Alan Cheuse are brought together in a quintessential collection. Countless listeners depend on the book reviews from Cheuse, America's "voice of books," and many of those listeners also follow his own critically acclaimed fiction and nonfiction. The title story--a flash fiction piece that acts as both prologue and an intriguing look at a writer's inspiration--takes us through a child's eyes into a fantastic land, one that informs, shapes, and travels along with the other stories in this stunning collection. These stories deal with life, death, love, family, work, and a deep exploration of the soul.

Dreams and nightmares-what Ambrose Bierce called "visions of the night"-are the basis of some of the greatest weird fiction in literary history. The unruly images that torment us in sleep are usually dispelled by the coming of day-but can they be dismissed so easily? Do nightmares have some impalpable reality that can affect our daily lives, the lives of those around us, and perhaps the very fabric of the universe? Who can say that the nightmare is merely a wisp of fancy engendered by our own minds? After all, it was Edgar Allan Poe who said: "All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream." All original nightmares by David Barker, Jason V Brock, Ramsey Campbell, Gemma Files, Richard Gavin, Caitlín R. Kiernan, Nancy Kilpatrick, John Langan, Reggie Oliver, W. H. Pugmire, Darrell Schweitzer, John Shirley, Simon Strantzas, Steve Rasnic Tem, Jonathan Thomas, Donald Tyson and Stephen Woodworth. This volume is edited by S. T. Joshi, a leading critic and anthologist of weird fiction.

"A stunning novel about childhood, marriage, and divorce by one of the most interesting minds of the 20th century, now back in print for the first time since 1969. Sophie Blind is starting a new life. She has left her husband Ezra and taken her three children to Paris. She has lovers there and another in New York. She is lecturing and writing. And she is compulsively reviewing her own history, having resumed the "lifelong struggle" of "coming into consciousness." The task of reclaiming her existence is all the more urgent because, even as Sophie Blind undertakes this necessary transformation-Sophie Blind is dead. Dream and reality overlap in Divorcing, a book in which divorcing is not just a matter of marital collapse but names a rift that runs right through the inner and outer worlds of its brilliant but desperate protagonist. Can the rift be mended? Perhaps in the form of a novel, one that goes back from present day New York to her childhood in pre-World War II Budapest, that revisits the divorce between her Freudian father and her fickle mother, and finds a place for a host of further tensions and contradictions of Sophie's life now. The question that haunts Divorcing, however, is whether any novel can be fleet and bitter and true and light enough to gather up all the darkness of a given life. Susan Taubes's startlingly original novel was published in 1969 but largely ignored; after the author's tragic early death, it was forgotten. Its republication presents a chance to rediscover a dazzling intense and inventive writer whose work in many ways anticipates the fragmentary, glancing, lyrical novels that Renata Adler and Elizabeth Hardwick would write in the 1970s"--

Swirling, curling brushstrokes. Vivid colors. Thick layers of paint. These are the hallmarks of a painting by Vincent van Gogh, whose work his fellow artist Paul Cézanne once called “that of a madman.” But Van Gogh and the Post-Impressionists for Kids moves beyond the image of the mad pauper to reveal a complex young man who loved nature and reading, spoke four languages, and enjoyed a successful career as a gallery salesman before embarking on studies as a minister and, finally, finding his calling as an artist. Kids journey from the Netherlands to Paris to southern France as they learn about van Gogh’s friendships with four other like-minded painters who admired but were determined to depart from Impressionism: Paul Gauguin, Paul Signac, Émile Bernard, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Aspiring artists and history buffs learn not only how these Post-Impressionists’ daring shapes, colors, and techniques distinguished their work from what was painted before but also how the men helped one another and whether or not they always got along. Twenty-one creative projects bring history and art to life. Readers will create a Starry Night peep box, make a Pointillist sailboat (that can really sail!), craft a Japanese fold-out album, and much more. The text includes a time line, glossary, and reading list for further study.

The spirit of a man named Sam, who died unexpectedly, inhabits the body of his beloved cat and communicates with his best friend, Jacob, and the woman he loved, Emilia.

"After discovering photography as a teenager through her high school's photo club, Lillian rejects her parents' expectations of college and marriage and moves to New York City in 1955. When a small gallery exhibits partially nude photographs of Lillian and her daughter, Samantha, Lillian is arrested, thrust into the national spotlight, and targeted with an obscenity charge. Mother and daughter's sudden notoriety changes the course of both of their lives and especially Lillian's career as she continues a lifelong quest for artistic legitimacy and recognition. Narrated by Samantha, Feast Your Eyes reads as a collection of Samantha's memories, interviews with Lillian's friends and lovers, and excerpts from Lillian's journals and letters--a collage of stories and impressions, together amounting to an astounding portrait of a mother and an artist dedicated, above all, to a vision of beauty, truth, and authenticity"--Provided by publisher.

An evocation of the life and times of the journalistic demagogue who was also one of the most powerful men in America during the 1940s and 50s. Arrogant, ambitious, sentimental, cunning, loved and hated, Walter Winchell is brought to life in this novel.

Young Marvin loves music and playing the piano but does not like practicing pieces by people named Ludwig or Wolfgang, until he receives valuable advice from his father on the day of a big audition.

When investigative journalist Isabel Morgan vanishes, her colleagues and lovers see this as just another gambit in her ever dramatic life. But her closest friend, Leo Holland, a Manhattan cartoonist, is filled with a sense of dread: something terrible has happened to Isabel. She is more certain of this than of much else in a life that is teetering close to the edge. In desperation, she flies to London to trace the woman she realizes has become her sustaining force.Convinced that Isabel's disappearance is tied in some way to the genetically modified substances she has been investigating and that her analyst holds the keys to her whereabouts, Leo masquerades as a potential patient. In the process, she discovers more than she set out to know. Danger, in Isabel's secret world, comes in many guises.

A Nick Hoffman / Academic Mystery, Book 1 - Nick Hoffman has everything he's ever wanted: a good teaching job, a beautiful house, and a solid relationship with his lover, Stefan Borowski, a brilliant novelist and writer-in-residence at the State University of Michigan. But when Perry Cross shows up, Nick's peace of mind is shattered. Not only does he have to share his office with the nefarious Perry, who managed to weasel his way into a tenured position without the right qualifications, he also discovers that Perry played a destructive role in Stefan's past. When Perry turns up dead, Nick wonders if Stefan might be involved, while the campus police force is wondering the same about Nick. Originally published in 1996, this first book in the Nick Hoffman Academic Mystery series is now back in print, with a 2019 foreword by the author. EDITORIAL REVIEWS: "Deliciously wicked... The perfect book to take away for a weekend in the country... a genuinely funny modern comedy of manners." - Washington Post Book World "The Borgias would not be bored at the State University of Michigan, that snake pit of academic politics." - New York Times Book Review "Clever and sharp social satire." - Los Angeles Times "Lev Raphael skewers academic pretensions with wicked glee [and] Dickensian flair." - Chicago Sun-Times Lev Raphael offers "a delightful take on death in academe." - San Francisco Chronicle A "witty and devastating backstage view of college life." - San Diego Union-Tribune "Some of the most pointed and funny put-downs of academics in my memory." - Detroit Free Press Raphael "elegantly skewers ivory-tower pretensions, petty politics, incompetencies and hypocrisies." - Booklist Lev Raphael combines "stylish literary mystery with an intimate look at the jungle of academia... witty, impeccably written." - The Mystery Review "Marvelous humor and satisfying mystery... wickedly fun." - Drood Review of Mystery "Bright, breezy, and laugh-aloud funny." - Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine

The only forensic psychiatrist writing suspense, Keith Ablow is being hailed as the heir to Thomas Harris. Keith Ablow's novels delve deep into that dark and deadly place that Ablow, one of the nation's leading forensic psychiatrists, knows best: the psyche of a killer. Ablow has explored the catacombs of the criminal mind to find out what makes them tick, and he brings that expertise to his new novel, a chilling and emotionally compelling story of the lengths to which one man will go to leave his own life behind. In Murder Suicide , Ablow and his alter-ego, Dr. Frank Clevenger, return to take on a murder case like no other. John Snow is a brilliant inventor who has made millions from his genius in aeronautics. He has everything a man could desire: wealth, family, even a beautiful mistress. But he also has a brain disease, a rare form of epilepsy, that threatens his most valuable possession -- his mind. Only one doctor may be able to cure it surgically, but at a terrible cost, one that Snow reveals to no one: Snow will have no memory whatsoever of his past - of its emotional entanglements or its secrets. He will be abandoning everyone he has ever known. But the night before he is scheduled to undergo the operation, he is found near the Massachusetts General Hospital, dead of a gunshot wound. Did he commit suicide, as the police suspect - or was he murdered? Forensic psychiatrist Dr. Frank Clevenger delves into Snow's complex past and tortured relationships to unlock the identity of Snow's killer: Was it the wife who can never forgive what he's done to their child and their marriage, the son who loathes him, the beautiful mistress who loves him so deeply but can never have him, or the business partner intent on taking control of his inventions? Only Frank Clevenger can unlock the door to Snow's startling past. And only Keith Ablow can take readers even further into the mind of a killer.

The secret. Every man and woman has dreamed of it. Now it's within reach ... and they'll do anything to possess it. The screen goddess. The contessa. The wily priest. The American public relations man looking for a cause. And his lover who may die for it. They are all caught between life's wildest dream ... and death.

Jack Lear is a predator driven by unbridled ambition. He makes a great fortune as a pioneering radio and television broadcaster, founds a network, and marries two beautiful socialites, but despite his conquests he continues to hunger for what he cannot have - the social respectability of old money. The women in his life are legion. His first marriage is to an exquisitely beautiful and shrewd WASP princess who turns him from the wealthy son of a Jewish scrap metal king into an elegant man, surrounded by tasteful trappings of wealth; his second marriage is to a lovely English aristocrat of impeccable lineage and sophisticated style, who introduces him to international high society. But nothing can ever tame Jack Lear's need to succeed, to overcome his enemies and rivals, to expand his network - until, finally, a threat from where he least expects it promises to tear his beloved empire out of his hands...

The ordinary seaman is Esteban, a 19-year-old veteran of the war in Nicaragua who has come to America with fourteen other men to crew the boat 'Urus'. Docked on a desolate Brooklyn pier, the 'Urus' turns out to be a wreck, sitting idle without plumbing or electricity. Lacking the means to return to their native country or the ability to find other work, the fifteen men become prisoners on a ship that never moves. As Esteban works up the courage to escape into the city and create a new life, the novel reveals the stories he and the other men share: each man's past is shrouded in the residue of broken hopes, hearts and dreams, betrayal and defiance, and of haunting loves, ghostly and actual. Evoking the work of Joseph Conrad, The Ordinary Seaman traces the very real conflicts between native and foreign, traditional and modern, with a voice all of its own.

In 1948, Aleksandr, a major in the MGB - forerunner of the KGB - is sent to a psychiatric clinic in the Ural mountains to investigate a patient, Second World War veteran Anatoly Yudin - a man long presumed dead... It's 1972, the year of Nixon's visit to Moscow; the Munich Olympics and their hostage crisis - the Cold War is entering detente, and the values that shaped Aleksandr's life become uncertain. Haunted by the past, his Stalinist faith again under threat, he interrogates his memories of the Yudin case, and tries to trace its effects on himself, and on those he loved most.

A searing thriller about the legacy of Stalin, from Booker-Prize shortlisted David Szalay It is 1948 in Russia and Aleksandr, a major in the MGB (the forerunner of the KGB) is sent to an isolated psychiatric clinic to investigate one of the patients there. The patient is a man long presumed dead - a now severely incapacitated veteran of the Second World War, who seems unable to remember any of his past. Twenty-four years later, Aleksandr is haunted by the case. With his Stalinist faith under threat as the Cold War recedes, he interrogates his memories and the effect the case had on himself and on those he loved most. 'Psychologically intricate, flawlessly researched' The Times 'Impressive' The Sunday Times 'David Szalay... has created an extraordinary character, a KGB man you can imagine knowing or even being' Observer