Magical realism

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewThis book is a marvel indeed—a charming, improbably generous portrait of the pleasures of small-town life and enduring values. Simultaneously funny, rueful, nostalgic, and wry, these stories embrace hope and endurance, finding the miraculous bound up in the mundane. As one character says, 'Earth was home to more marvels than he could take in.' -- Erin McGraw, author of Joy and 52 Other Very Short StoriesLike the stories of Jim Heynen or Wendell Berry, the missives found in Scott Russell Sanders's Small Marvels are finely finished finishes of bulletins and billet-doux that lap and layer 'place' into Place, creating a depth by means of gritty sanding and steel-wooled buffing on what was once the flat and dull surface of the world's old spoil. America's drama has always been between mobility and stability. These deadpan understated dispatches from the striations of Limestone are all about the staunch staying, and these tales sculpt, indeed, poetic stays against the entropic confusion found in all our hyperkinetic need for the getting up and the going. -- Michael Martone, author of The Complete Writings of Art Smith, The Bird Boy of Fort Wayne, Edited by Michael Martone and The Moon Over WapakonetaThere is nothing small about this epic, large-hearted, greatly imagined book. Of all of his serious books on the fate of our earth, this may be Sanders's most honest of all, a brave look at the realities of a struggling life in a literal holy landscape. We need this poignant, deeply comical book to remind us what a good time we can have after all in this world, right at home, with each other, in the most basic and fantastic of ways. -- Barbara Mossberg, author of Here for the Present, professor of Literature and Leadership at the University of OregonScott Russell Sanders, being a wise man who agonizes over the sinking of our traditional virtues, uses his great storytelling skills to keep buoying them up. In Small Marvels, he reminds us of the values of honest work, unselfishness, and wholesome family devotion, not by preaching but by pulling us into warm, funny, whimsical stories about the poor but happy family of Gordon Mills, a homely jack-of-all-trades who can leave no good deed undone. Gordon is the worthiest poor-folks' hero I've seen since Wendell Berry's unforgettable Jayber Crow. -- James Alexander Thom, author of Fire in the WaterScott Russell Sanders's newest book, Small Marvels, makes me feel better about the world. Each story from the lives of Gordon Mills and his family is a gift and the collection as a whole is a balm for the heart and spirit. In a time of uncertainty and division, Gordon (who is part mechanic, part everyday mystic) and his very human, always entertaining family, reminds us of all that is still right in the world and shines a light on what is luminous and extraordinary in an ordinary day. Scott Russell Sanders has a beautiful constellation of works, I have loved all I've encountered, and Small Marvels is truly another bright star. -- Carrie Newcomer, songwriter, author of Until Now, The Beautiful Not Yet, Until Now: New PoemsScott Russell Sanders's Small Miracles is its own kind of miracle, a contemporary work of short fiction where the protagonist, Gordon Mills, quietly repairs the work of entropy with love and kindness, a ready set of a handyman's tools, and an unshakable faith in community. I love this character, his family, and the town of Limestone, Indiana, a place reminiscent of Wendell Berry's Port Williams, that they call home. -- Susan Neville, author of The Town of Whispering DollsWhen I first heard Scott tell a story, I prayed the day would come he'd write a book of them, and here it is! In Small Marvels, eloquence, humor, and magic mingle together in a delicious blend. Limestone, Indiana, will no doubt take its place in the landscape of Hoosier legends. -- Philip Gulley, author of the Harmony SeriesScott Russell Sanders has created a literature encompassing the natural world, our sense of place, and the ways in which we can build community that lasts. This collection of linked stories about an unwieldy, yet loving family in what might, at first glance, seem like the middle of nowhere is a tender addition to a generous body of work. -- David Hoppe, author of Midcentury BoyJoyful, whimsical and lovely. -- Katie Noah Gibson * Cakes, Tea and Dreams *Small Marvels is an evocative short story collection that tickles the imagination as it explores the magic of a Midwestern town. * Foreword Reviews *Essayist and nature writer Scott Russell Sanders returns to fiction in his joyous, whimsical novel-in-stories, Small Marvels. The collection follows the life of Gordon Mills, a city maintenance worker in small-town Indiana, and the adventures of his loving, rambunctious family. Told in Sanders's signature rambling prose, the 24 stories recount the joys and travails of Gordon's career and family life: an overstuffed house in need of constant repair, cranky teenagers and aging parents, his own aching back. But the 'small marvels' of the title await around every corner, whether it's seeing the northern lights improbably gleam over the city dump or the pleasure of watching birds flock to a homemade yard feeder. Sanders (Dancing in Dreamtime) sprinkles his stories with quotidian wonders, placing his characters in humdrum situations where magic flashes unexpectedly. In brief vignettes with one-word titles, Sanders explores mundane challenges, such as the tight finances of a large household, and more esoteric ones, like the group of centaurs and dragons that take shelter in a local cave. With his wife, Mabel—a sturdy, practical woman—Gordon manages to keep his family fed and clothed, while also helping his four children through various growing pains. Charming and engaging without being twee, Small Marvels celebrates the simple joys of living in this world and the miracles, otherworldly or everyday, that wait for those who are willing to look. Sanders's portrayal of wonder in Gordon's world will inspire readers to look for magic in their own lives. * Shelf Awareness *Please, find a copy of Small Marvels and embrace within it your personal moments of wonderment and joy, connections and discoveries, and the simple gift of love. -- Rita Kohn * Nuvo *The only thing wrong with Scott Russell Sanders's new collection of short stories, Small Marvels, is the title. For while many of the marvels that Sanders describes may be of the everyday sort— the birth of a child, the sounds of sandhill cranes wheeling overhead—there's nothing small about them. They're the kind of wonders that fill a life with awe, meaning, and love. . . . Sanders describes Gordon as having been "seized by grace." Sanders was clearly seized by the same grace when he wrote this magical collection. -- Julie Gray * Bloom *Table of ContentsAuroraTreesSistersParentsWidowsSmokeCentaurBluesWealthMaintenanceWeightDanceCrowsRabbitFossilTrashAlligatorsWorryWolfWildernessSnowDinosaurAnniversaryFlood

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewThis book is a marvel indeed—a charming, improbably generous portrait of the pleasures of small-town life and enduring values. Simultaneously funny, rueful, nostalgic, and wry, these stories embrace hope and endurance, finding the miraculous bound up in the mundane. As one character says, 'Earth was home to more marvels than he could take in.' -- Erin McGraw, author of Joy and 52 Other Very Short StoriesLike the stories of Jim Heynen or Wendell Berry, the missives found in Scott Russell Sanders's Small Marvels are finely finished finishes of bulletins and billet-doux that lap and layer 'place' into Place, creating a depth by means of gritty sanding and steel-wooled buffing on what was once the flat and dull surface of the world's old spoil. America's drama has always been between mobility and stability. These deadpan understated dispatches from the striations of Limestone are all about the staunch staying, and these tales sculpt, indeed, poetic stays against the entropic confusion found in all our hyperkinetic need for the getting up and the going. -- Michael Martone, author of The Complete Writings of Art Smith, The Bird Boy of Fort Wayne, Edited by Michael Martone and The Moon Over WapakonetaThere is nothing small about this epic, large-hearted, greatly imagined book. Of all of his serious books on the fate of our earth, this may be Sanders's most honest of all, a brave look at the realities of a struggling life in a literal holy landscape. We need this poignant, deeply comical book to remind us what a good time we can have after all in this world, right at home, with each other, in the most basic and fantastic of ways. -- Barbara Mossberg, author of Here for the Present, professor of Literature and Leadership at the University of OregonScott Russell Sanders, being a wise man who agonizes over the sinking of our traditional virtues, uses his great storytelling skills to keep buoying them up. In Small Marvels, he reminds us of the values of honest work, unselfishness, and wholesome family devotion, not by preaching but by pulling us into warm, funny, whimsical stories about the poor but happy family of Gordon Mills, a homely jack-of-all-trades who can leave no good deed undone. Gordon is the worthiest poor-folks' hero I've seen since Wendell Berry's unforgettable Jayber Crow. -- James Alexander Thom, author of Fire in the WaterScott Russell Sanders's newest book, Small Marvels, makes me feel better about the world. Each story from the lives of Gordon Mills and his family is a gift and the collection as a whole is a balm for the heart and spirit. In a time of uncertainty and division, Gordon (who is part mechanic, part everyday mystic) and his very human, always entertaining family, reminds us of all that is still right in the world and shines a light on what is luminous and extraordinary in an ordinary day. Scott Russell Sanders has a beautiful constellation of works, I have loved all I've encountered, and Small Marvels is truly another bright star. -- Carrie Newcomer, songwriter, author of Until Now, The Beautiful Not Yet, Until Now: New PoemsScott Russell Sanders's Small Miracles is its own kind of miracle, a contemporary work of short fiction where the protagonist, Gordon Mills, quietly repairs the work of entropy with love and kindness, a ready set of a handyman's tools, and an unshakable faith in community. I love this character, his family, and the town of Limestone, Indiana, a place reminiscent of Wendell Berry's Port Williams, that they call home. -- Susan Neville, author of The Town of Whispering DollsWhen I first heard Scott tell a story, I prayed the day would come he'd write a book of them, and here it is! In Small Marvels, eloquence, humor, and magic mingle together in a delicious blend. Limestone, Indiana, will no doubt take its place in the landscape of Hoosier legends. -- Philip Gulley, author of the Harmony SeriesScott Russell Sanders has created a literature encompassing the natural world, our sense of place, and the ways in which we can build community that lasts. This collection of linked stories about an unwieldy, yet loving family in what might, at first glance, seem like the middle of nowhere is a tender addition to a generous body of work. -- David Hoppe, author of Midcentury BoyJoyful, whimsical and lovely. -- Katie Noah Gibson * Cakes, Tea and Dreams *Small Marvels is an evocative short story collection that tickles the imagination as it explores the magic of a Midwestern town. * Foreword Reviews *Essayist and nature writer Scott Russell Sanders returns to fiction in his joyous, whimsical novel-in-stories, Small Marvels. The collection follows the life of Gordon Mills, a city maintenance worker in small-town Indiana, and the adventures of his loving, rambunctious family. Told in Sanders's signature rambling prose, the 24 stories recount the joys and travails of Gordon's career and family life: an overstuffed house in need of constant repair, cranky teenagers and aging parents, his own aching back. But the 'small marvels' of the title await around every corner, whether it's seeing the northern lights improbably gleam over the city dump or the pleasure of watching birds flock to a homemade yard feeder. Sanders (Dancing in Dreamtime) sprinkles his stories with quotidian wonders, placing his characters in humdrum situations where magic flashes unexpectedly. In brief vignettes with one-word titles, Sanders explores mundane challenges, such as the tight finances of a large household, and more esoteric ones, like the group of centaurs and dragons that take shelter in a local cave. With his wife, Mabel—a sturdy, practical woman—Gordon manages to keep his family fed and clothed, while also helping his four children through various growing pains. Charming and engaging without being twee, Small Marvels celebrates the simple joys of living in this world and the miracles, otherworldly or everyday, that wait for those who are willing to look. Sanders's portrayal of wonder in Gordon's world will inspire readers to look for magic in their own lives. * Shelf Awareness *Please, find a copy of Small Marvels and embrace within it your personal moments of wonderment and joy, connections and discoveries, and the simple gift of love. -- Rita Kohn * Nuvo *The only thing wrong with Scott Russell Sanders's new collection of short stories, Small Marvels, is the title. For while many of the marvels that Sanders describes may be of the everyday sort— the birth of a child, the sounds of sandhill cranes wheeling overhead—there's nothing small about them. They're the kind of wonders that fill a life with awe, meaning, and love. . . . Sanders describes Gordon as having been "seized by grace." Sanders was clearly seized by the same grace when he wrote this magical collection. -- Julie Gray * Bloom *Table of ContentsAuroraTreesSistersParentsWidowsSmokeCentaurBluesWealthMaintenanceWeightDanceCrowsRabbitFossilTrashAlligatorsWorryWolfWildernessSnowDinosaurAnniversaryFlood

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Book SynopsisA delicious mix of East and West, of wonder and irony, The Fox and Dr. Shimamura is a most curious novelTrade Review"A wonderful and most of all wonderfully told story." -- Die Zeit"What a beautiful book!" -- Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung"The Fox & Dr. Shimamura is a cornucopia of strange pathologies and historical oddities, spanning multiple continents and languages, that breaks down the polarities between religion and science, supernatural hauntings and neurotic hauntings, and Eastern and Western cultural ideologies. Dr. Shimamura, a Japanese neurologist who travels to the hotspots of psychiatry in early twentieth-century Europe, thinks in both Japanese and German, and harbors a slight disdain for the backwardness of Japanese science; yet while he prides himself on being a supremely rational, modern man, he can’t shake the conviction that he is possessed by a fox that slithers under his skin. Christine Wunnicke takes her place alongside the Japanese-German writer Yoko Tawada as an adept celebrator of cosmopolitan intermixture and the magic of subverting monocultural systems." -- Gregory Ariail - Kenyon Review"A marvel, a wonder—a deeply strange little novel about medicine, memory, and fox possession. With her delicate prose, arch tone, and mischievous storytelling, Wunnicke proves herself a master of the form." -- Kirkus (starred review)"A mythical, mystical, and at times bizarre tale of a late nineteenth-century Japanese doctor who is sent to remote areas of the Shimane prefecture to cure women of fox possession. Wunnicke slyly reminds us that, although women are powerless, even when it comes to treating their own illnesses, they find ways to quietly assert their will over men." -- Melissa Beck - Music and Literature"Wunnicke paints nightmarishly hectic European scenes in a palette of absinthe and Toulouse-Lautrec, and alternates them with nightmarishly static scenes of Shimamura’s declining, colorless present in Japan. Connections proliferate like reflections in a house of mirrors, fascinating and also vaguely queasy — the narrative is disorienting in every sense of the word. But absurdist fiction, like psychotherapy, requires an investment of energy and a suspension of judgment. The Fox and Dr. Shimamura is worth the effort." -- New York Times Book Review"Christine Wunnicke’s glittering, absurdist jewel of a novel." -- New York Times Book Review"The Fox and Dr. Shimamura recovers the almost magical counternarratives running parallel to key moments in the history of western modernity. Shimamura is marked as someone who is navigating the hazy boundaries of gender, finding through the fox spirit some access to an internalized femininity that is rebuked by his society in the form of history’s most gendered diagnosis. Rich and engaging." -- The Carolina Quarterly"An appealingly haunting novel, slightly off-kilter, suggesting the unknown and the unknowable." -- M.A. Orthofer - The Complete Review"A miniature voyage around the world and into the not-so-distant past. Wunnicke’s deftly drawn vignettes of Dr. Shimamura’s life provide tantalizing glimpses into the manifestations of Eastern and Western psychiatry at the turn of the last century." -- Catherine Venner - World Literature Today"Wunnicke spoofs the misogynist history of psychology in this clever and rewarding novel of slippery memories tinged with Japanese myths: this gracefully amusing blend of history and imagination will beguile readers.""“Delightfully crazy—very nicely told: Wunnicke succeeds in drawing us into the logic of this mad world, where the fox moving under a girl’s skin is as vivid (and believable?) as Charcot’s demonstration of the arc of la grande hysterie.”" -- Rosmarie Waldrop

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Book Synopsis"I passed away at two o’clock in the afternoon on a Friday in August in 1869, in my beautiful mansion in the Catumbi district of the city." So begins Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas—at the end of the narrator’s life. Published in 1881, this highly experimental novel was not at first considered Machado de Assis’ definitive work—a fact his narrator anticipated, bidding "good riddance" to the critic looking for a "run-of-the-mill-novel". Yet in this coruscating new translation, Margaret Jull Costa and Robin Patterson reveal a pivotal moment in Machado’s career, as his flights of the surreal became his literary hallmark. An enigmatic, amusing and frequently insufferable anti hero, Brás Cubas describes his Rio de Janeiro childhood spent tormenting household slaves, his bachelor years of torrid affairs and his final days obsessing over nonsensical poultices. A novel that helped launch modernist fiction, Brás Cubas shines a direct light to Ulysses and Love in the Time of Cholera.Trade Review"One of the wittiest, most playful, and therefore most alive and ageless books ever written." -- Dave Eggers"An offbeat, invigorating classic is perfect reading for a morbid summer." -- The Economist

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Book SynopsisThis magical realist tale follows the travails of a burnt-out teacher from Queens who spends his time obsessing over the fact that he has been cheated out of living in his Grandma Rose’s Lower East Side apartment and is thus priced out of his “More Recent Ancestral Home” of Manhattan. In The Lower East Side Tenement Reclamation Association, David Rothman weaves a rich story about real estate, family, and memory. Daniel, the protagonist, is haunted by the memories of his childhood experiences in his grandmother’s apartment, a home that he desperately wants to inhabit. One day he discovers a hidden relic on Rivington Street: a tenement reclamation office run by an eccentric centurion named Hannah. When Daniel inquires about the chances of reclaiming his grandmother’s old tenement, Hannah is not impressed. “Things don’t work like that, you rude, young schlub!” And so begins Daniel’s journey to take back his past and to secure an affordable space for his family in downtown Manhattan. This is a journey full of twists and turns, ups and downs, and an ending that would make even the most thick-skinned New York real estate agent shake.The Lower East Side Tenement Reclamation Association is the winner of the Omnidawn Fabulist Fiction Novelette Prize, selected by Meg Ellison. Trade Review“The Lower East Side Tenement Reclamation Association is a brilliantly-written work of magical fiction in which both contemporary New York and the Jewish immigrant experience come alive. I loved Daniel, who wants a Manhattan apartment in the most desperate way, his sensible wife Julie, and their wise little girl, Hannah. The book is both moving and comic.” -- Phyllis Smith, author of I am Livia“Rothman’s novel lands readers in a magical New York City, where portals and keys lead to wondrous places. But moreover, it’s a story that profoundly explores the weight of loss, the complexities of family, and the power of nostalgia.” -- Noah Lederman, author of A World Erased

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Book SynopsisRelic species extinct everywhere else on the planet thrive on a remote archipelago. Evolution requires isolation, and these islands offer the perfect environment for genetic variation to take place, fostering new and unique forms of flora and fauna. Evolutionary biologists Emily and Roland have come on an extended field expedition to this secluded world, eager to expose its unique biosphere.As they work to gather a large dataset of dead specimens for study and description, Emily and Roland experience growing shifts in their perception, in their bodies, and even in the flow of linear time. The environment they have come to quantify acts upon them, the species they collect observe and comment upon them, and the controlled lens of science cannot save them. Succumbing to the dynamic power of isolation, they find themselves irrevocably changed.A poetic novel told through field notes, letters, and scientific data, Refugia is a story of discovery and transformation that shows the hubris inherent in the idea that humans live both outside, and at the center of, the natural world. This is a book that reveals science in all its imperfect beauty, crossing the line between observer and observed, scientist and subject, between what is known and what is unknowable.

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Book SynopsisTrade Review“Unusual and gripping. . . .Fans of successful reimaginings of literary classics. . .will be entertained.” — Publishers Weekly “It takes chutzpah to revive one of the most vivid yet most unknowable characters in all literature, let alone to place him in a story that celebrates its own essential pulpiness. . . . Jeffrey Ford has that chutzpah . . .[M]arvelous.” — SciFi Magazine (”A” rating) “[A]n imaginary sequel to an imaginative work, a virtual or alternate vision. … Primed for adventure, Harrow guides [Ahab] through New York’s seething underworld on his quest and perchance to find fresh material. Of that, readers are dealt a-plenty.” — Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star “Ford knows how to tell a story, whatever the genre, and how to get out of its way and when to stop, and here that makes for a great few hours between the covers. … Sign on for this one; it’s well worth the trip.” — Washington Independent Review of Books “This is an adventure worthy of the captain. … This fast-paced, occasionally acerbic, often bloody, but always entertaining story is an homage to Moby-Dick and a fitting continuation/conclusion of Ahab’s story.” — New York Journal of Books Praise for The Shadow Year: “Jeffrey Ford is one of the few writers who uses wonder instead of ink in his pen.” — Jonathan Carroll, author of The Wooden Sea “Properly creepy, but from time to time deliciously funny and heartbreakingly poignant, too. For those of you—and you know who you are—who think the indispensable element for good genre fiction is good writing, this is not to be missed.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “Superb, heartbreaking, and masterfully written. . . . It’s proof of Jeffrey Ford’s narrative power that, ultimately, the distinction [between real and invented] doesn’t much matter. His made-up world trumps ours.” — Magazine of Science Fiction and Fantasy “A work of episodic beauty and mercurial significance.” — Locus “Think Ray Bradbury’s “Green Town” stories, Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird and Stephen King’s The Body (made into the film Stand by Me) and you get an idea of the tone of Ford’s latest fine work. Grade: A” — Denver Rocky Mountain News

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Book SynopsisNATIONAL BESTSELLERA NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS'' CHOICEProclaimed as “truly spellbinding,” a “great fable” that “functions as transporting romance” by the Guardian, the runaway #1 international bestseller A rich, gothic entertainment that explores what books have trapped inside them and reminds us of the power of storytelling. Spellbinding.” — TRACY CHEVALIERImagine you could erase grief.Imagine you could remove pain.Imagine you could hide the darkest, most horrifying secret.Forever.Young Emmett Farmer is working in the fields when a strange letter arrives summoning him away from his family. He is to begin an apprenticeship as a Bookbinder—a vocation that arouses fear, superstition, and prejudice amongst their small community, but one neither he nor his parents can aff

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Book SynopsisWhy does her cousin Helena get to go to school and roam the streets of New York freely while she’s confined to the family’s decrepit brownstone?As the Melancons’ thirst to maintain their status grows, Amara, now a successful lawyer running for district attorney, looks for a way to avenge her longstanding grudge against the family.Trade Review"Caul Baby is a deeply inventive meditation on survival and inheritance. Morgan writes about the intricacies of Black motherhood in a way that is tender and at times, magic." — Raven Leilani, New York Times bestselling author of Luster “A debut novel that blends family drama with magic.” — Time Magazine “This magical novel brings together the weight of tradition and the power of family.” — NBC News “Caul Baby gave me chills almost every time I turned the page. . . . The book traces a legacy of Black, female pain through the somewhat softening lens of magical realism. It’s an unsparing take on the ramifications of trauma on Black American women, and Jerkins manages it as a spellbinding story, the farthest possible thing from a lecture.” — Glamour “A fascinating, of-the-moment story about the intersection of motherhood, power, and community.” — Real Simple “The astounding talent behind nonfiction must-reads This Will Be My Undoing and Wandering in Strange Lands turns to fiction with Caul Baby. . . . An exhilarating tale of family, belonging, and bodies, this promises to be one of the most exciting releases of the year.” — Elle “Jerkins, a bestselling nonfiction writer, applies her scrupulous prose and storytelling prowess to the realm of fiction in her beguiling debut novel.” — Oprah Daily “This engrossing story is rich with mystery, page-turning tension and the powerful ways family can hold us even in toxic circumstances.” — Good Housekeeping Morgan Jerkins' fantastic, expansive novel of mothers and daughters and Harlem, Caul Baby, is a meditation on the limits of inheritance and legacy. It's also a love letter to a rapidly changing neighborhood. — Kaitlyn Greenidge, author of Libertie and We Love You, Charlie Freeman “Excellent. . . . an audacious debut novel, telling a powerful family tale that does not shy away from the dark reaches of capitalism, greed, gentrification, tradition, and ownership. It is a moving piece of fiction that showcases the very best of what the author has learned from her previous work in nonfiction and expounds on that foundation in a way that only someone as skilled and multifaceted as Jerkins could pull off.” — Shondaland “Jerkins’s incisive social commentary shines through in her fiction debut Caul Baby. . . . Laced with generational pain and sprinkled with magic, Caul Baby is a sweeping family drama with no shortage of action. During a pandemic that has laid bare a nation’s inequities, Jerkins’s work feels more relevant than ever. . . a blazingly original debut.” — Chicago Review of Books “A multilayered reflection of contemporary dilemmas with a touch of magic realism. . . . Readers are taken through a spectrum of emotions with a satisfying payoff. On the heels of her excellent memoir Wandering in Strange Lands, Jerkins solidifies herself as one of our guiding literary lights.” — Booklist (starred review) “Ambitious and unique. . . . Caul Baby is like nothing I’ve read before. It has historical references but is overwhelmingly a book of our time. It delivers a story that weaves the nuance of Black womanhood with intergenerational struggles and triumphs and the heartache of contemporary racial injustice.” — New York Journal of Books “An expansive, folklorish tale of two families—both headed by Black matriarchs—that intertwine for over 20 years. . . . Caul Baby hones in on the power of a healing legend in a community systematically ignored and harmed by the medical establishment. . . . Jerkins’ debut novel asks what it means to be a mother and emphasizes that a community’s care for its own can be the most radical form of love.” — Bust “A decades-long exploration of the gentrification of Harlem, the ethics of non-traditional family-making, the enduring power of tradition and more.” — PureWow "A captivating story on the bonds between mothers and daughters and a powerful meditation on secrets, gentrification, family legacy, and more. A must-read.?" — Hey Alma "Rich. . . . Jerkins effectively blends folk legend with contemporary details. . . It's vividly conceived, and the strong plot will carry readers to the end." — Publishers Weekly Wandering in Strange Lands: "Wandering in Strange Lands intertwines segments of past and present travel, as a reminder that the past is present in the U.S." — O, the Oprah Magazine This Will Be My Undoing: “Without turning linguistic or lyrical cartwheels, Jerkins lucidly articulates social dynamics that have dictated the realities of American black women for centuries…. Indeed, [This Will Be My Undoing] is a book I wish everyone in this country would read.” — New York Times Book Review This Will Be My Undoing: “In Morgan Jerkins’s remarkable debut essay collection, This Will Be My Undoing, she is a deft cartographer of black girlhood and womanhood. From one essay to the next, Jerkins weaves the personal with the public and political in compelling, challenging ways. Her prodigious intellect and curiosity are on full display throughout this outstanding collection. The last line of the book reads, ‘You should’ve known I was coming,’ and indeed, in this, too, Jerkins is prescient. With this collection, she shows us that she is unforgettably here, a writer to be reckoned with.” — Roxane Gay

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Book SynopsisTrade Review“One of the most outstanding Latin American short novels of the year.” — New York Times “A powerful story whose narrator wields brutally honest observations on the intersections of class, poverty, and gender. Reyes’ debut is a strong addition to the growing body of Latin American crime fiction in the U.S. market. A stirring genre blend of fantasy and crime fiction that combines graceful prose and magic realism.” — Booklist (starred review) “Reyes succeeds in making the feisty Eartheater and her visions both persuasive and affecting.” — Library Journal (starred review) “In a voice that is terse, blunt, and biting, the narrator reckons with the impact of her visions on her health and relationships, as she witnesses more and more the ways fear and violence shape the experiences of the women in her community. Compelling and visceral, Reyes’ debut combines mystery and coming-of-age to evoke the stories of the victims of femicide.” — Kirkus Reviews “A raw and vital literary debut, Eartheater takes an unwavering and visceral look at systems of power through the perspective of a young woman caught in the crosshairs.” — Shelf Awareness "In Reyes' hands, this coming-of-age novel flowers into a meditation on death, and the earth all children will eat in the end." — New York Observer “Dolores Reyes’s writing is visceral and urgent. It’s also connected to a powerful tradition of fantasy and crime, and it reflects on violence against women with enormous lucidity.” — Mariana Enriquez, author of Things We Lost in the Fire "With its own shining light and singular voice, Eartheater follows in the footsteps of such essential authors as Juan Rulfo and Sara Gallardo.” — Selva Almada, author of The Wind That Lays Waste “Dolores Reyes’s harsh and sensitive lyricism explodes in your hands.” — Gabriela Cabezón Cámara, author of The Adventures of China Iron

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Book SynopsisAn outstanding array—52 pieces in all—of selected fiction from the multiple-award-winning, #1 New York Times bestselling author Neil Gaiman, introduced with a foreword by Booker Prize-winning author Marlon JamesSpanning Gaiman’s career to date, The Neil Gaiman Reader: Selected Fiction is a captivating collection from one of the world’s most beloved writers.A brilliant representation of Gaiman''s groundbreaking, entrancing, endlessly imaginative fiction, this captivating volume includes excerpts from each of his five novels for adults —Neverwhere, Stardust, American Gods, Anansi Boys, and The Ocean at the End of the Lane—and nearly fifty of his short stories. Impressive in its depth and range, The Neil Gaiman Reader: Selected Fiction is both an entryway to Gaiman’s oeuvre and a literary trove Ga

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Book SynopsisShortlisted for the Reading the West Book Award in the Debut Fiction “Swim Home to the Vanished is a lush and fantastic journey through strange lands and minds from an incandescent new voice full of my kind of melancholic brilliance and unromantic magic.”—Tommy Orange, author of There, ThereAfter the death of his brother, a grief-stricken young man seeks refuge and oblivion in a secluded fishing village dominated by a family of brujas in this haunting debut novel, inspired, in part, by the ramifications of Diné history and thought—a mesmerizing, original tale in the tradition of works by Toni Morrison, Haruki Murakami, and Gabriel García Márquez.When the river swallowed Kai, Damien’s little brother didn’t die so much as vanish. As the unbearable loss settles deeper into his bones, Damien, a small-town line cook, walks away from

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Book SynopsisA National Indie BestsellerWinner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Story Prize, and a Windham-Campbell Literature PrizeA Best Book of the Year at The New York Times, The New Yorker, Vogue, Houston Chronicle, Roxane Gay's The Audacity, Mashable, Polygon, Kirkus Reviews, and Library JournalA New York Times Book Review Editor's ChoiceUncanny and haunting . . . Genius. Michele Filgate, The Washington PostDazzling. Maureen Corrigan, NPR's Fresh AirWhat happens when fantasy tears the screen of the everyday to wake us up? Could that waking be our end?In Bliss Montage, Ling Ma brings us eight wildly different tales of people making their way through the madness and reality of our collective delusions: love and loneliness, connection and possession, friendship, motherhood, the idea of ho

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Book SynopsisLydia Millet’s debut novel, first published in 1996, is an explosive satire that scorches our culture’s monstrous men and institutions.Trade Review"All manner of voracious American appetites—for sex, power, and possessions—are darkly lampooned in this strange, often very funny debut." -- Entertainment Weekly"Omnivores reads like a cartoon with soul." -- Los Angeles Times"If Flannery O’Connor came back from the dead and abandoned her fixation with Southern religion, she might be proud to write something like Lydia Millet’s astonishing first novel, Omnivores." -- Sun-Sentinel

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Book SynopsisIn a bravura feat of storytelling, Mark Haddon calls upon narratives ancient and modern to tell the story of Angelica, a young woman trapped in an abusive relationship with her father. When a young man named Darius discovers their secret, he is forced to escape on a boat bound for the Mediterranean. To his surprise he finds himself travelling backwards over two thousand years to a world of pirates and shipwrecks, of plagues and miracles and angry gods. Moving seamlessly between the past and the present, Haddon conjures the worlds of Angelica and her would-be savior in thrilling fashion. As profound as it is entertaining, The Porpoise is a stirring and endlessly inventive novel from one of our finest storytellers.

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Book SynopsisNEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “It’s Lovecraft meets the Brontës in Latin America, and after a slow-burn start Mexican Gothic gets seriously weird.”—The Guardian IN DEVELOPMENT AS A HULU ORIGINAL LIMITED SERIES PRODUCED BY KELLY RIPA AND MARK CONSUELOS • WINNER OF THE LOCUS AWARD • NOMINATED FOR THE BRAM STOKER AWARD ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, NPR, The Washington Post, Tordotcom, Marie Claire, Vox, Mashable, Men’s Health, Library Journal, Book Riot, LibraryReads An isolated mansion. A chillingly charismatic aristocrat. And a brave socialite drawn to expose their treacherous secrets. . . . From the author of Gods of Jade and Shadow comes “a terrifying twist on classic gothic horror” (Kirkus Reviews) set in glamorous 1950s Mexico.

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Book Synopsis“Hace dos días que andamos sobre el armazón del planeta, olvidados de la Historia y hasta de las oscuras migraciones de las eras sin crónicas. […] Lo que se abre ante nuestros ojos es el mundo anterior al hombre.”Huyendo de una existencia vacía y rutinaria en la ciudad de Nueva York, un compositor viaja con su amante hasta un poblado perdido en las profundidades de una selva en Sudamérica en busca de instrumentos primitivos. El protagonista remonta el río Orinoco hasta sus orígenes y va descubriendo los estratos temporales de la humanidad, mediante una regresión en el tiempo en la que al mismo tiempo irá descubriéndose a sí mismo. Allí tendrá que decidir si quiere permanecer en un mundo primitivo, carente de bienes materiales pero donde ha encontrado la felicidad, o retornar a la civilización.Los pasos perdidos es una profunda reflexi&oacute

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Book SynopsisOne of The New York Times best Fantasy novels of 2022!An utterly delightful epistolary romance....The Impossible Us is that rare 'I laughed, I cried' book.—The New York TimesNick: Failed writer. Failed husband. Dog owner.Bee: Serial dater. Dress maker. Pringles enthusiast. One day, their paths cross over a misdirected email. The connection is instant, electric. They feel like they’ve known each other all their lives. So they decide to meet.While Nick buys a new suit, and gets his courage up, Bee steps away from her desk, and sets off to meet him at a London train station. With their happily-ever-after nearly in hand, what happens next is incredible and threatens to separate them forever. As their once in a lifetime connection is tested, Nick and Bee will discover whether being together is an impossible chance worth taking.

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Book SynopsisThis enchanting tale of a cursed mythical creature and the lonely fisherman who falls in love with her is a daring, mesmerizing novel…single-handedly bringing magic realism up-to-date (Maggie O’Farrell, best-selling author of Hamnet).Sentence by sensuous sentence, Roffey builds a verdant, complicated world that is a pleasure to live inside.... You might start to believe in the existence of mermaids.” —The New York TimesIn 1976, David is fishing off the island of Black Conch when he comes upon a creature he doesn’t expect: a mermaid by the name of Aycayia. Once a beautiful young woman, she was cursed by jealous wives to live in this form for the rest of her days. But after the mermaid is caught by American tourists, David rescues and hides her away in his home, finding that, once out of the water, she begins to transform back into a woman.Now David must work to win Aycayia's trust while she relearns what it is to be human, navigating not only her new body but also her relationship with others on the island—a difficult task after centuries of loneliness. As David and Aycayia grow to love each other, they juggle both the joys and the dangers of life on shore. But a lingering question remains: Will the former mermaid be able to escape her curse? Taking on many points of view, this mythical adventure tells the story of one woman’s return to land, her healing, and her survival.

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Book SynopsisOne marriage. So many secrets. Can a camera that captures those secrets, exposing them through pictures, save the marriage or send it crashing into the sea?Kelly Whitely is at the height of her career, selling the latest miracle drug to doctors and pharmacies across the country. But concerns about the side effects have her longing for the day when she can quit her high-paying job and really focus on saving her marriage and teenage daughter. She keeps trying to talk to her husband, Daniel, about it, but every time she brings it up, he retreats further and further away from her.Daniel Whitely is a successful marriage counselor and bestselling author, yet secrets from the past have created a chasm between him and Kelly. To make matters worse, the deadline for his second book has come and gone, and he still hasn’t written a single word. But he doesn’t dare tell anyone, not even his wife.When Daniel inherits an old camera from his gr

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Book SynopsisWith a preface by the irrepressible Patti Smith, The Divorce is a delightful book of several short amazing stories of chance meetings, bizarre circumstances, and even stranger visions of alternate realities written as only César Aira canTrade Review"[A] fleeting glance at the deeply strange multitudes living in Aira’s mind palace...marked by not only his characteristically expressive language, but also his willingness to go just about anywhere with a narrative." -- Kirkus"This prismatic, exquisitely rendered work is from a master at the height of his powers." -- Publishers Weekly (starred review)"Sui generis is really the only way to accurately describe César Aira. He’s by turns a realist, a magical realist and a surrealist — and therefore not really any of them. Anything can happen in an Aira novel, and almost everything does." -- Tyler Malone - Los Angeles Times"We come full circle, to the 'delicate machine' that put everything in motion. In someone else’s hands, this might feel like a trick, but in Aira’s it is magical." -- Sheila Glaser - New York Times Book Review"The Divorce is a masterful demonstration of focused imagination. Aira chronicles overlapping coincidences, layering memory with temporality and injecting magic into the mundane to create a kaleidoscopic tale of serendipitous meetings that rumbles like an avalanche down a mountain, gathering speed and power as the novel progresses. With lightness and verve, Aira twirls the macro with the micro to create a singular novel whose story turns and turns again until it comes full circle, like “that ‘little steel fairy,’ the bicycle, from whose spinning stories are born." -- Alex Crayon - World Literature Today

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Book SynopsisNATIONAL BESTSELLERA GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICKWith its countless epiphanies and surprises, Oona proves difficult to put down. USA TodayBy turns tragic and triumphant, heartbreakingly poignant and joyful, this is ultimately an uplifting and redemptive read. The GuardianA remarkably inventive novel that explores what it means to live a life fully in the moment, even if those moments are out of order.It's New Year's Eve 1982, and Oona Lockhart has her whole life before her. At the stroke of midnight she will turn nineteen, and the year ahead promises to be one of consequence. Should she go to London to study economics, or remain at home in Brooklyn to pursue her passion for music and be with her boyfriend? As the countdown to the New Year begins, Oona faints and awakens thirty-two years in the future in her fifty-one-year-old body. Greeted by a friendly stranger in a beautiful house she's told is her own, Oon

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Book SynopsisFull of nature and wonder, love and adventure, Beasts of Extraordinary Circumstance is a beautifully written novel that bristles with charm and curiosity (Winston Groom, New York Times bestselling author of Forrest Gump). Born in a blizzard, orphaned, and believed to be raised by wolves, Weylyn Grey is someone who inspires endless curiosity in everyone he's ever met. People say that once Weylyn wanders into your world, you'll wish he'd never leave. But what makes him different? How does he possess the ability to transform others' lives? How does he manage to findand createmagic in the ordinary? This is the story of Weylyn's journey, told from the perspective of those who knew him, loved him, or were bewildered by him along the way. In this stunning and deeply imaginative debut, author Ruth Emmie Lang introduces us to a character who will live in readers' hearts long after the last page is turned.

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Book SynopsisBold, iridescent . . . Dazzling and shocking . . . Ross's lyrical, rhythmic writing is something to be savored . . . [Her] voice sings out loud and pure. Eowyn Ivey, The New York Times Book ReviewAn uproarious, sensual novel, Leone Ross's Popisho conjures a world where magic is everywhere, food is fate, politics are broken, and love awaits.Everyone in Popisho was born with a little something-something, boy, a little something extra. The local name was cors. Magic, but more than magic. A gift, nah? Yes. From the gods: a thing so inexpressibly your own. Somewhere far awayor maybe right nearbylies an archipelago called Popisho. A place of stunning beauty and incorrigible mischief, destiny and mystery, it is also a place in need of change. Xavier Redchoose is the macaenus of his generation, anointed by the gods to make each resident one perfect meal when the time is right. Anise, his long-lost love, is on a

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Book SynopsisAn ingenious pocket universe. Caitlin Horrocks, The New York Times Book Review Gunnhild Øyehaug is a magician of the highest rank. Catherine LaceyOn an ordinary day in Bergen, Norway, in the late 1990s, Anna is reading in the garden while her two-year-old daughter, Laura, plays on her tricycle. Then, in one startling moment, Anna misreads a word, an alternate universe opens up, and Laura disappears. Twenty years or so later, life has gone on as if nothing happened. In each of the women's lives, however, something is not quite right.Both Anna and Laura continue to exist, but they are invisible to each other and forgotten in each other's worlds. Both are writers and amateur pianists. Both are married; Anna had two more children after Laura disappeared, and Laura is expecting a child of her own. They worry about their families, their jobs, the climateand whether this reality is all there is.In the exquisite, wistful, slyly profoun

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Book SynopsisFrom the author of What Remains True comes an emotionally captivating novel about a woman who wishes away her troubles but doesn’t anticipate the cost. I wish… It starts with a simple wish, and Emma Davies hardly notices when it comes true. She’s too preoccupied with a life she isn’t happy in—the spark in her marriage has fizzled, her career is headed nowhere and her boss is a misogynist. Her teenage daughter has grown distant, and her heart breaks daily for her teenage son with cerebral palsy. But soon Emma discovers her wishes are coming true, and she realizes that she has been given the power to change her life. Either that, or she’s going insane. Emma begins testing her newfound gift, making calculated wishes and learning one important rule—once granted, they cannot be undone. Over time, she grows bolder as she builds up to the one wish she both fears and desperately longs to make. But when Emma finally gets everything she’s asked for, will it be worth the price?Trade Review“‘Be careful what you wish for’ has never rang truer than in Janis Thomas’s latest. Shocking, disturbing, and heart-wrenching, All That’s Left of Me is as real as it is magical. Thomas deftly weaves a tale of one woman desperate for a better life that made me laugh, and made me cry. It made me think: What would I wish for? All That’s Left of Me will captivate readers from page one and keep them guessing until the end.” —Kerry Lonsdale, Amazon Charts and Wall Street Journal bestselling author “All That’s Left of Me draws the reader in via the author’s hypnotic prose, and when ‘what-if’ becomes ‘I wish,’ the reader is left stunned and breathless by the consequences. This is a novel about love, regret, heartache, and appreciation for a perfectly imperfect life.” —Grace Greene, bestselling author of The Memory of Butterflies “A compelling and poignant family drama, All That’s Left of Me is the story of a woman who feels trapped by circumstance in what she views as an unhappy life. And then one day, she makes a wish. No one could be more shocked than she when it comes true. And then—she makes several more wishes, until, magically, she has altered the very fabric of her existence beyond recognition. But there is a price that must be paid—and consequences she could never have anticipated. You know what they say…be careful what you wish for. All That’s Left of Me is a cautionary tale, one that will make you think and keep you guessing to the final page.” —Barbara Taylor Sissel, bestselling author of The Truth We Bury

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Book Synopsis“Miquel Reina’s Lights on the Sea is an absolutely lovely, beautiful debut novel with a dreamy, fable-like quality that will appeal to readers. Fans of Life of Pi will love this novel.” —Kristin Hannah, New York Times bestselling author of The Nightingale and The Great Alone On the highest point of an island, in a house clinging to the edge of a cliff, live Mary Rose and Harold Grapes, a retired couple still mourning the death of their son thirty-five years before. Weighed down by decades of grief and memories, the Grapeses have never moved past the tragedy. Then, on the eve of eviction from the most beautiful and dangerously unstable perch in the area, they’re uprooted by a violent storm. The disbelieving Grapeses and their home take a free-fall slide into the white-capped sea and float away. As the past that once moored them recedes and disappears, Mary Rose and Harold are delivered from decades of sorrow by the ebb and flow of the waves. Ahead of them, a light shimmers on the horizon, guiding them toward a revelatory and cathartic new engagement with life, and all its wonder. Wildly imaginative, deeply poignant, and entirely unexpected, Lights on the Sea sweeps readers away on a journey of fate, acceptance, redemption, and survival against the most rewarding of odds.Trade Review“This beautiful, unusual tale explores the healing power of love and the magic that exists in our everyday lives, even when we don’t know how to find it.” —Jill Santopolo, New York Times bestselling author of The Light We Lost “Miquel Reina’s Lights on the Sea is an absolutely lovely, beautiful debut novel with a dreamy, fable-like quality that will appeal to readers. Fans of Life of Pi will love this novel.” —Kristin Hannah, New York Times bestselling author of The Nightingale and The Great Alone

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Book SynopsisWhat if you woke up one day and the loved one you’d lost was suddenly, inexplicably alive again? Chloe Howard’s devotion to her job has come at a cost: spending time with the most important person in her life—her mother. Vowing to change, she plans a trip home. Sadly, hours before she arrives, her mother passes away, leaving Chloe without a goodbye and riddled with grief and regret. But maybe…maybe it’s not too late. Just days before the funeral, Chloe finds her mother unaccountably alive and well. And it’s no longer May; she’s been transported back in time to March. No one—not Chloe’s brother, friends, or colleagues—understands why Chloe is so confused. How can she make sense of this? It’s impossible. But Chloe is going to make the most of it. She’s going to do everything differently: repair family rifts, forge new bonds, tell her mother every day how much she loves her, and possibly prevent the inevitable. This is a second chance Chloe never saw coming. She’s not wasting a minute of it.Trade Review“This is a heart-wrenching novel about family and love, with a wide range of well-developed characters. Readers who enjoy novels by Jessica Strawser or Barbara O’Neal will need a box of tissues for this one.” —Booklist (starred review) “Sarah Echavarre’s debut women’s fiction is a moving story about second chances and the precious time we have with loved ones. This was a page-turner, immersive, and all-consuming, and the perfect book to pick up this holiday season. Three More Months is a must-read.” —Tif Marcelo, USA Today bestselling author of In a Book Club Far Away

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