Magical realism

Book SynopsisA novel about the truthssome wonderful, some terriblethat children know and adults do not. Time magazineA beautiful, immersive, fully illustrated edition of Neil Gaiman's beloved #1 bestselling novel, featuring illustrations by Elise Hurst.They say you cannot go home again, and that is as true as a knife . . .A man returns to the site of his childhood home where, years before, he knew a girl named Lettie Hempstock who showed him the most marvelous, dangerous, and outrageous things, but when he gets there he learns that nothing is as he remembered.Wondrous, imaginative, impossible, and at times deeply scary, The Ocean at the End of the Lane is classic Neil Gaiman and has captured the hearts of readers everywhere. This beautiful illustrated edition features haunting, emotive artwork by renowned fine artist Elise Hurst, whose illustrations seamlessly interweave the childhood wonder and harrowing danger that infuse Gaiman's beloved tale.Fantasy of the very best.Wall Street Journal

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Book SynopsisVengeful and despairing, our protagonist discusses countermeasures with his secret crush, the reliably blunt Akashi, when Tamura, a strange young man with a bad haircut, appears.Tamura claims to be a time traveler from 25 years in the future, and shows off the time machine he uses to travel.Trade Review“While readers of the original Japanese endured 16 years of waiting, anglophone audiences got lucky with a mere year in between Morimi's novels; gratitude for both translations goes to Balistrieri, who deftly channels the frenetic fun.” — Booklist

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Book SynopsisLONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD The long-awaited, profoundly moving, and unforgettable new novel from PEN Award-winning Native American author Mona Susan Power, spanning three generations of Yanktonai Dakota women from the 19th century to the present day.From the mid-century metropolis of Chicago to the windswept ancestral lands of the Dakota people, to the bleak and brutal Indian boarding schools, A Council of Dolls is the story of three women, told in part through the stories of the dolls they carried….Sissy, born 1961: Sissy’s relationship with her beautiful and volatile mother is difficult, even dangerous, but her life is also filled with beautiful things, including a new Christmas present, a doll called Ethel. Ethel whispers advice and kindness in Sissy’s ear, and in one especially terrifying moment, maybe even saves Sissy’s life.Lillian, born 1925: Born in her ancestral lands in a time of terrible change, Lillian clings to her sister, Blanche, and her doll, Mae. When the sisters are forced to attend an “Indian school” far from their home, Blanche refuses to be cowed by the school’s abusive nuns. But when tragedy strikes the sisters, the doll Mae finds her way to defend the girls.  Cora, born 1888: Though she was born into the brutal legacy of the “Indian Wars,” Cora isn’t afraid of the white men who remove her to a school across the country to be “civilized.” When teachers burn her beloved buckskin and beaded doll Winona, Cora discovers that the spirit of Winona may not be entirely lost…A modern masterpiece, A Council of Dolls is gorgeous, quietly devastating, and ultimately hopeful, shining a light on the echoing damage wrought by Indian boarding schools, and the historical massacres of Indigenous people. With stunning prose, Mona Susan Power weaves a spell of love and healing that comes alive on the page.Trade Review“Power’s deep knowledge of Indigenous history comes through in keen depictions of the Indian schools, and she illuminates the characters’ struggles with generation trauma, which arise as they try to sustain their connections to the past. This story of survival shines brightly.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review) “A Council of Dolls reached out, grabbed me and did not let go. Power’s ability to make language sing, cry, scream, and laugh illuminates this heartstopper of a book that shines a light into the dark corners of America’s history. I wanted the generational journey I was taking with these unforgettable characters—and their dolls—to never end. Read it—and be healed.” — Marie Myung-Ok Lee, author of The Evening Hero “A Council of Dolls absorbs through the skin, enters the bone, and disperses through the psyche—it perfectly captures the internal roots of the Native experience. Through the lives of three Dakota women, we grapple with the emotional, psychological, and spiritual toll on Indigenous peoples enduring an often brutal system and, moreover, how strength, healing, and love reverberate down each passing generation to dispense hope and resiliency. I cannot more highly recommend Power’s newest masterpiece.” — Oscar Hokeah, PEN/Hemingway award-winning author of Calling for a Blanket Dance "Moving...hypnotic." — Minneapolis Star Tribune "Mona Susan Power’s new novel is an honor song to the love and strength of Native families and our stories, to our brilliant selves. I couldn’t have known how much I needed the wisdom and offerings of these pages." — Kelli Jo Ford, author of Crooked Hallelujah “This tender and magical novel will stay with me for a long time. Mona Susan Power writes with dazzling empathy. The result is a heart-rending and many-layered narrative, a captivating story which is also a thrilling testimonial to the power of stories.” — Margot Livesey, author of The Boy in the Field A resplendent novel about the spirited lives of three inspiring women who endure significant change and hardship. Each story so deeply compelling I wanted to read quickly but was magnetized by the transformative power of each voice. A mighty, dazzling whirlwind of storytelling. These stories lift from the page. Prepare to stay up all night. A Council of Dolls is mesmerizing. Take a deep breath! Mona Susan Power can peer into darkness and transform it." — Debra Magpie Earling — Debra Magpie Earling “A work of exquisite beauty and courageous truth-telling, and an unforgettable homage to ancestral suffering and strength.” — Sheila O’Connor, author of Evidence of V “A talent like Susan Power comes along once in a lifetime, and lucky for us she's arrived. Here is a debut so stunning, so extraordinary in its depth and passion, you will swear there's a miracle on every page.” — Alice Hoffman, on The Grass Dancer “The Grass Dancer is astonishing, and not simply because it's Susan Power's first book. It is pure and potent magic, with storytelling that encircles you like wisps of tribal ghosts." — Amy Tan “This is a wild river of a book. Susan Power writes with a headlong energy and a force that are nothing less than thrilling. The Grass Dancer is painfully authentic, and Anna Thunder one of the most compelling female characters in contemporary fiction.” — Louise Erdrich “Captivating…a healing vision that goes to the core of our humanity.” — New York Times Book Review on The Grass Dancer “Stunning…Power steeps us in the traditions and culture of contemporary Indian life.” — San Francisco Chronicle on The Grass Dancer “Every new book by Susan Power is cause for celebration. This vibrant work is no exception. Her vision is intact: vivid, telling, honest, and transcendent. Power is a treasure and a true artist.” — Luis Alberto Urrea, on Sacred Wilderness

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Book SynopsisSalman Rushdie is the author of sixteen novels, including Midnight's Children (for which he won the Booker Prize and the Best of the Booker), The Satanic Verses, and Quichotte (which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize). A former president of PEN American Center, Rushdie was knighted in 2007 for services to literature and was made a Companion of Honour in the Queen's last Birthday Honours list in 2022.Trade Review"A brilliant, fascinating, generous novel...wonderful" -- Ursula le Guin Guardian "A wild and whirling novel" Observer "For Rushdie, as for the artists he writes about, the pen is a magician's wand. There is more magic than realism in this latest novel. But it is, I think, one of his best. If The Enchantress of Florence doesn't win this year's Man Booker I'll curry my proof copy and eat it" Financial Times "My first desire on finishing it was to go back and re-read it. Like all of Rushdie's work, the playfulness, the passion, the erudition and the sensuousness go hand in hand. It's immensely rich...it's one of his best" Scotsman "An exuberant mix of fantasy and history" Daily Mail

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Book SynopsisIn 1978, Haruki Murakami was 29 and running a jazz bar in downtown Tokyo. One April day, the impulse to write a novel came to him suddenly while watching a baseball game. That first novel, Hear the Wind Sing, won a new writers' award and was published the following year. More followed, including A Wild Sheep Chase and Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, but it was Norwegian Wood, published in 1987, which turned Murakami from a writer into a phenomenon. His books became bestsellers, were translated into many languages, including English, and the door was thrown wide open to Murakami's unique and addictive fictional universe.Murakami writes with admirable discipline, producing ten pages a day, after which he runs ten kilometres (he began long-distance running in 1982 and has participated in numerous marathons and races), works on translations, and then reads, listens to records and cooks. His passions colour his non-fiction output, from What I Talk About WhTrade ReviewMurakami writes of contemporary Japan, urban alienation and journeys of self-discovery, and in this book he combines recollections of the war with metaphysics, dreams and hallucinations into a powerful and impressionistic work * Independent *Deeply philosophical and teasingly perplexing, it is impossible to put down * Daily Telegraph *Murakami weaves these textured layers of reality into a shot-silk garment of deceptive beauty * Independent on Sunday *Critics have variously likened him to Raymond Carver, Raymond Chandler, Arthur C. Clarke, Don DeLillo, Philip K. Dick, Bret Easton Ellis and Thomas Pynchon - a roster so ill assorted as to suggest Murakami is in fact an original * New York Times *Mesmerising, surreal, this really is the work of a true original * The Times *

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Book SynopsisFROM THE AUTHOR OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER THE PARTICULAR SADNESS OF LEMON CAKE - A RICHARD AND JUDY BOOK CLUB PICKLONGLISTED FOR THE PEN/JEAN STEIN BOOK AWARD''The Butterfly Lampshade is an unflinching, empathetic portrayal of a childhood touched by mental illness. As always, Aimee Bender''s respect for the child and the child within translates into wisdom and magic on the page.'' Jing-Jing Lee, author of How We DisappearedOn the night her mother is taken to a mental health hospital after a psychotic episode, eight year-old Francie is mesmerised by a lamp adorned with butterflies as she falls asleep. When she wakes, Francie sees a dead butterfly matching the ones on the lamp floating in a glass of water. She drinks it before anyone sees. Twenty-years later, Francie is compelled to make sense of that moment and two other incidents that have haunted her life. But how closTrade Reviewa beautifully written portrayal of a girl trying to understand her mother's mental illness. * Sunday Express *[A] compact surrealist memory box of a novel. . . Its particular quality of stillness hums with so much mystery and intensity that the book never feels static . . . I felt considerably more altered by the experience than I often am by novels that travel much further from their beginnings . . . One finishes the novel with the eerie sense that we too are objects who have slipped accidentally into being. * New York Times *[A] dazzling rumination on time and mental illness ... Bender has a gift for rooting wonderfully inventive fables in a very recognisable walkable world [and the] middle-class Los Angeles of backyards and hatchbacks, bus stops and craft shops, is overlaid with mythic events-modest miracles, observed by few, that expose a world of mystery. . . [Francie's] receptiveness to the marvels eddying around brightens every detail in a small, deeply felt life. * Oprah Magazine *[A] poignant novel of love and mental illness. * USA Today *

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Book SynopsisSalman Rushdie was born in Bombay in 1947. He is the author of many adult novels including the Booker winning Midnight's Children. He wrote Haroun and Luka for his sons, Zarfar and Milan.Trade ReviewLively, wonderfully inventive comic tale -- Alison Lurie * New York Times Book Review on Haroun *A beautiful book... It's like a bridge, built between generations, fabulous and strange and from the heart -- Neil Gaiman on Luka

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Book SynopsisTHE INTERNATIONALLY BESTSELLING NOVELADAPTED INTO A FEATURE FILM WITH ELIJAH WOODFrom the bestselling author of Here I Am, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and We are the Weather - a hilarious, life-affirming and utterly original novel about the search for truth''Gripping, hilariously funny and deeply serious. An astonishing feat of writing'' The Times''One of the most impressive novel debuts of recent years'' Joyce Carol Oates, Times Literary Supplement''A first novel of startling originality'' Jay McInerney, Observer''It seems hard to believe that such a young writer can have such a deep understanding of both comedy and tragedy'' Erica Wagner, The TimesA young man arrives in the Ukraine, clutching in his hand a tattered photograph. He is searching for the woman who fifty years ago saved his grandfather from the Nazis. Unfortunately, he is aided in his quest by Alex, Trade Review'An astonishing feat' The Times

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Book SynopsisA man of devilish charm and enterprising spirit, Dougal Douglas is employed to revitalize the ailing firm of Meadows, Meade & Grindley. He succeeds, but not quite in the way his employer intended. Strange things begin to happen as Dougal exerts an uncanny influence on the inhabitants of Peckham Rye and brings lies, tears, blackmail and even murder into the lives of all he meets, from Miss Merle Coverdale, head of the typing pool, to Beauty, the resident femme fatale, and even Mr Druce, the unsuspecting Managing Director himself.

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Book SynopsisThe coveted and award-winning Penguin Threads series continues with three more enchanting, beautifully sewn covers by a talented visual artistWith paper and pen or needle and thread, storytelling has many traditions. Penguin's award-winning art director Paul Buckley presents Penguin Threads, a series of Penguin Classics Deluxe Editions inspired by the aesthetic of handmade crafts with specially commissioned cover art. Jillian Tamaki's embroidered artwork appears on The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, Emma by Jane Austen, and Black Beauty by Anna Sewell. This latest set features three beloved classics for both adults and children with cover art by painter and illustrator Rachell Sumpter. Sketched in a traditional illustrative manner, the final covers are sculpt embossed and present full front and reverse hand-stitched designs. Through story, style and texture, the Penguin Threads is an exciting chapter in Pe

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Book SynopsisA vivid and inspiring adventure story from the father of magical realismDissatisfied with his empty, Sisyphus-like existence in New York City, where he has abandoned his creative dreams for a job in corporate advertising, an aspiring composer wants nothing more than to tear his life up from the root. He soon finds his escape hatch: a university-sponsored mission to South America to look for indigenous musical instruments in one of the few areas of the world safely untouched by the industrial world. Retracing the steps of time, he voyages with his lover into a land that feels outside of history, searching not just for music but ultimately for himself, and turning away from modernity towards the very heart of what makes us human.Trade Review“Penguin Classics has recently published sensational new translations of two of Carpentier’s novels, The Lost Steps (1953) and Explosion in a Cathedral (1962). . . . What made them influential, and makes them so dazzlingly readable still, is their style. . . . Needless to say, this marriage of style and subject would be illegible to English-language readers without a first-rate translator, and in Adrian Nathan West, Penguin Classics has found their man.” —The Wall Street Journal“An erudite yet absorbing adventure story . . . A book full of riches—stylistic, sensory, visual.” —The New York Times Book Review“Carpentier’s novels are full of luscious descriptions of nature. . . . His descriptions of food and drink are exquisite. . . . The mannered intensity of Carpentier’s language—maintained at fever pitch by West—propels the reader. . . . Every sentence in the novel [is] freighted with learning and a passion for high art. . . . What the reader takes away overall from West’s translation is a freshness and bite and aesthetic ambition that match Carpentier’s.” —Natasha Wimmer, The New York Review of Books“Extraordinary.” —The New Yorker“The most remarkable translating feat I encountered in 2023 comes courtesy of Adrian Nathan West, who in The Lost Steps and Explosion in a Cathedral brings the almost orgiastically baroque prose of Alejo Carpentier into glorious English.” —Sam Sacks of The Wall Street Journal, via Twitter“An absolutely magnificent piece of literature . . . The prose is mesmerizing, and it’s one of those books where I just want to have it tattooed on me in its entirety to keep with me forever.” —BuzzFeed“The greatest novel to have appeared in Latin America in our time.” —Le Figaro Littéraire“Beautiful and stirring . . . One of [Carpentier’s] finest works . . . which for many readers is the most alluring of his novels.” ―Leonardo Padura, from the Introduction

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewBoth deeply thoughtful and immensely playful ... Here we have a kind of magical realism for science fiction ... What is at the heart of every incident, every interlude, is a luminous exploration of humanity: love, power, death, the known and the unknown ... Contemplative, provoking, bizarre - and brilliant. Quite, quite brilliant * Tor *A novel that is unlike anything I've ever read, one part pulp adventure to one part realistic depiction of the affluent, nearly-idle bourgeoisie, but always leaning more towards the former in its inventiveness and pure sense of fun * Los Angeles Review of Books *Understated and impressive ... Gorodischer takes well-worn tropes in entertaining directions that both evoke their golden age roots and transcend them with a layer of absurdism. A joy to read * Publisher's Weekly *Gorodischer's tales are a perfect blend of Argentine reality and sci-fi fantasy. The reader can hear every word of the original whispered behind this translation by Amalia Gladhart -- Lisa Carter

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Book SynopsisShh! Listen! What is that I hearGallumphing softly up the stair?This beautiful edition of Dirty Beasts, part of The Roald Dahl Classic Collection, features official archive material from the Roald Dahl Museum and is perfect for Dahl fans old and new.So, enter a world where invention and mischief can be found on every page and where magic might be at the very tips of your fingers . . .The Roald Dahl Classic Collection reinstates the versions of Dahl's books that were published before the 2022 Puffin editions, aimed at newly independent young readers.

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Book SynopsisStrange Pilgrims is a collection of unforgettable stories about distinctive South American individuals in Europe from the Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez author of One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera. ''The first thing Señora Prudencia Linero noticed when she reached the port of Naples was that it had the same smell as the port of Riohacha''The twelve stories here tell of Latin Americans adrift in Europe: a bereaved father in Rome for an audience with the Pope carries a box shaped like a cello case; an aging streetwalker waits for death in Barcelona with a dog trained to weep at her grave; a panic-stricken husband takes his wife to a Parisian hospital to treat a cut and never sees her again. Combining terror and nostalgia, surreal comedy and the poetry of the commonplace, Strange Pilgrims is a triumph of storytelling by our most brilliant writer.''Celebratory and full of strange relish at lifeTrade ReviewCelebratory and full of strange relish at life's oddness. The stories draw their strength from Márquez's generous feel for character, good and bad, boorish and innocent * William Boyd *

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Book SynopsisNobel Laureate Gabriel García Márquez,, author of the One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera, portrays a food company violating a small Colombia town in his vivid and powerful novel Leaf Storm. ''Suddenly, as if a whirlwind had set down roots in the centre of the town, the banana company arrived, pursed by the leaf storm''Drenched by rain, the town has been decaying ever since the banana company left. Its people are sullen and bitter, so when the doctor - a foreigner who ended up the most hated man in town - dies, there is no one to mourn him. But also living in the town is the Colonel, who is bound to honour a promise made many years ago. The Colonel and his family must bury the doctor, despite the inclination of their fellow inhabitants that his corpse be forgotten and left to rot.''The most important writer of fiction in any language'' Bill Clinton''Márquez is a retailer of wonders'' Sunday Times''An exquisite writer, wise, compassionate and extremely funny'' Sunday TelegraphTrade ReviewThe most important writer of fiction in any language * Bill Clinton *

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Book SynopsisTHE INTERNATIONALLY BESTSELLING NOVELADAPTED INTO A FEATURE FILM WITH ELIJAH WOODFrom the bestselling author of Here I Am, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and We are the Weather - a hilarious, life-affirming and utterly original novel about the search for truth - now available as a pocket-sized Penguin Essential''Gripping, hilariously funny and deeply serious. An astonishing feat of writing'' The Times''One of the most impressive novel debuts of recent years'' Joyce Carol Oates, Times Literary Supplement''A first novel of startling originality'' Jay McInerney, Observer''It seems hard to believe that such a young writer can have such a deep understanding of both comedy and tragedy'' Erica Wagner, The TimesA young man arrives in the Ukraine, clutching in his hand a tattered photograph. He is searching for the woman who fifty years ago saved his grandfather from the Nazis. Unfortunately, he is aided in his quest by Alex, a translator with an uncanny ability to mangle English into bizarre new forms; a blind old man haunted by memories of the war; and an undersexed guide dog named Sammy Davis Jr, Jr. What they are looking for seems elusive -- a truth hidden behind veils of time, language and the horrors of war. What they find turns all their worlds upside down...

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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 SynopsisThis "sweeping intergenerational saga" tells the story of a pampered and defiant South Korean matriarch thrust into the afterlife from which she seeks a second chance to make amends (Kirstin Chen)-and fights off a tragic curse that could devastate generations to come.

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Book SynopsisA hilarious, escapist romcom from the author of CONFESSIONS OF A FORTY-SOMETHING F##K UP!How do you know he''s The One?Are you getting butterflies just thinking about him?Have you dreamt of marrying him?Do you just know?When Lucy meets Nate in Venice, she knows instantly he''s The One. And, caught up in the whirlwind of first love, they kiss under the Bridge of Sighs at sunset. Which - according to legend - will tie them together forever . . .But ten years later, they''ve completely lost contact. That is, until Lucy moves to New York and the legend brings them back together again. And again. And again. But what if Nate isn''t The One? How is she going to get rid of him? Because forever is a very long time . . .A funny, magical romantic comedy about how finding The One doesn''t always have to mean happily ever after.Trade ReviewPraise for Alexandra PotterFantastically funny * Elle *Sharply written, pacey and funny * The Times *Feel-good fiction full of unexpected twists and turns * OK! Magazine *A touching, funny love story * Company *Always perceptive, often funny, never dull * Heat *The perfect reading romcom * Daily Mail *This is the type of fun fiction we can't resist * Heat *PRAISE FOR ALEXANDRA POTTER * : *Fantastically funny * Elle *Sharply written, pacey and funny...pure self-indulgence' * The Times *Feel-good fiction full of unexpected twists and turns * OK! *A touching, funny love-story * Company *Always perceptive, often funny, never dull * Heat *The perfect reading romcom * Daily Mail *This is the type of fun fiction we can't resist * Stylist *

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Book SynopsisMysterious beans are found on the market stalls of the East, to which ancient superstition lends the power of favouring the birth of male children. When a French entomologist obtains a few of these beans, he worries that the world has entered a critical phase of its history.Trade ReviewIf someone is going to tell a story about the end of the world, we can glean some comfort from the fact that it is told in a voice as refined and delightful as Amin Maalouf's - Independent on Sunday

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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 Synopsis#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK • From the National Book Award–winning author of Between the World and Me, a boldly conjured debut novel about a magical gift, a devastating loss, and an underground war for freedom.“This potent book about America’s most disgraceful sin establishes [Ta-Nehisi Coates] as a first-rate novelist.”—San Francisco ChronicleIN DEVELOPMENT AS A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE • Adapted by Ta-Nehisi Coates and Kamilah Forbes, directed by Nia DaCosta, and produced by MGM, Plan B, and Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo FilmsNOMINATED FOR THE NAACP IMAGE AWARD • NAMED ONE OF PASTE’S BEST NOVELS OF THE DECADE • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Time • NPR • The Washington Post • Chicago Tribune • Vanity Fair • Esquire • Good Housekeeping • Paste • Town & Country • The New York Public Library • Kirkus Reviews • Library Journal Young Hiram Walker was born into bondage. When his mother was sold away, Hiram was robbed of all memory of her—but was gifted with a mysterious power. Years later, when Hiram almost drowns in a river, that same power saves his life. This brush with death births an urgency in Hiram and a daring scheme: to escape from the only home he’s ever known. So begins an unexpected journey that takes Hiram from the corrupt grandeur of Virginia’s proud plantations to desperate guerrilla cells in the wilderness, from the coffin of the Deep South to dangerously idealistic movements in the North. Even as he’s enlisted in the underground war between slavers and the enslaved, Hiram’s resolve to rescue the family he left behind endures. This is the dramatic story of an atrocity inflicted on generations of women, men, and children—the violent and capricious separation of families—and the war they waged to simply make lives with the people they loved. Written by one of today’s most exciting thinkers and writers, The Water Dancer is a propulsive, transcendent work that restores the humanity of those from whom everything was stolen.Praise for The Water Dancer“Ta-Nehisi Coates is the most important essayist in a generation and a writer who changed the national political conversation about race with his 2015 memoir, Between the World and Me. So naturally his debut novel comes with slightly unrealistic expectations—and then proceeds to exceed them. The Water Dancer . . . is a work of both staggering imagination and rich historical significance. . . . What’s most powerful is the way Coates enlists his notions of the fantastic, as well as his fluid prose, to probe a wound that never seems to heal. . . . Timeless and instantly canon-worthy.”—Rolling Stone

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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 SynopsisIn these irreverent pages, a shapeshifter gets a crash course in gender and sexuality by inhabiting both sides of the binary and arriving precisely somewhere in the middle. —O, The Oprah Magazine“HOT” (Maggie Nelson) • “TIGHT” (Eileen Myles) • “DEEP” (Michelle Tea)A Kirkus Reviews Best Fiction Book of the CenturyIt's 1993 and Paul Polydoris tends bar at the only gay club in a university town thrumming with politics and partying. He studies queer theory, has a dyke best friend, makes zines, and is a flaneur with a rich dating life. But Paul's also got a secret: he's a shapeshifter. Oscillating wildly from Riot Grrrl to leather cub, Paul transforms his body and his gender at will as he crossed the country––a journey and adventure through the deep queer archives of struggle and pleasure. Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl is a riotous, razor-sharp bildungsroman whose hero/ine wends his/her way through a world gutted by loss, pulsing with music, and opening into an array of intimacy and connections.

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