Search results for ""unnamed press""

Inspired by real news, The Happy Broadcast offers accessible ideas encouraging action and involvement to help make the world a better placeThe Happy Broadcast: How to Stay Positive, Take Action & Make the World a Better Place is filled with inspiring true stories of people doing good around the world, as well as prompts, tips, and how-tos for taking action to make good things happen in your own community. From drone delivered medical supplies, to a cuddle club uniting senior dogs with senior people, to a man who planted a tree every day for thirty-five years and created a forest larger than Central Park, the stories collected in The Happy Broadcast are surprising, diverse, and empowering, featuring Mauro Gatti's charming and humorous illustrations.

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What if the end of man is not caused by some cataclysmic event, but by the nature of humans themselves? In Age of Blight, a young scientist's harsh and unnecessary experiments on monkeys are recorded for posterity; children are replaced by their doppelgangers, which emerge like flowers in their backyards; and two men standing on opposing cliff faces bear witness to each other's terrifying ends. Age of Blight explores a kind of post-future, in which the human race is finally abandoned to the end of its history. Muslim's poetic vignettes explore the nature of dystopia itself, often to darkly humorous effect, as when the spirit of Laika (the Russian space dog that perished on Sputnik 2) tries to befriend a satellite, or when Beth, the narrator's older sister, returns from the dead. The collection is illustrated throughout by the charcoal drawings of RISD artist Alessandra Hogan. In haunting and precise prose, Kristine Ong Muslim posits that humanity's downfall will be both easily preventable and terrifyingly inevitable, for it depends on only one thing: human nature.

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Lima, 1970: a tremendous earthquake has just struck the Peruvian capital, and mayhem reigns. Tensions are high, with a population reeling from the disaster and mesmerized by the World Cup. Enter detective Simon Weiss, tasked with solving two seemingly unrelated murders: the crucifying and beheading of a Japanese man in a pool hall and an apparent murder-by-hanging of an elderly Jewish man. Joined by Lieutenant Kato Kanashiro, whose deep ties to Japanese-Peruvian culture inform the case in surprisingly personal ways, Weiss traces the histories of two very different criminals and their crimes. Weiss is haunted by the trauma of a childhood partly spent in a German concentration camp. Weiss is troubled -- boozing, coke-snorting, and vengeful. He is unfaithful to his prostitute lover and takes up with a younger, married woman who is a fellow survivor of the Holocaust. Weiss and Kanashiro's banter is hilariously recorded with Goldemberg's deadpan police procedural narration. Beyond a simple pulp, Remember the Scorpion tracks the wreckage of the Second World War and reconstructs it in the conflicted psyche of a South American detective. Weiss must uncover the relation between the perpetrators and their crimes, while searching deep within himself to conquer his own demons.

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"A travelogue of purgatory. Brutal, but minutely rendered…” —Guillermo del Toro It’s early 2020, and legendary producer Jacob Rosenthal is eager to make his next film, Coal, adapted from the bestselling novel by the celebrated writer Rex Patterson. The project—which takes on the controversial topic of race in America—is Jacob’s envisioned magnum opus, and likely his swan song. He selects David Levit to direct, a major opportunity for the classically trained actor/director whose own films, while garnering critical acclaim, have not resulted in box office success. But the announcement of David’s hiring doesn’t sit well with a producer from David’s past, Brad Shlansky, who channels the last remaining vestiges of his creativity into a revenge plot that could very well scupper the making of Coal, and ruin the lives of its producer and director in the process. <

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"Stephens' darkly comic, sharply irreverent, undeniably wise 'Great Adoption Novel' is an unexpectedly timely, not-to-be-missed, epic wild ride." —Booklist, *Starred Review* Lisa Pearl is an American teaching English in Japan and the situation there—thanks mostly to her spontaneous, hard-partying ways—has become problematic. Now she’s in Seoul, South Korea, with her childhood best-friend Mindy. The young women share a special bond: they are both Korean-born adoptees into white American families. Mindy is in Seoul to track down her birth mom, and wants Lisa to do the same. Trouble is, Lisa isn’t convinced she needs to know about her past, much less meet her biological mother. She’d much rather spend time with Harrison, an almost supernaturally handsome local who works for the MotherFinder’s agency. When Lisa wakes up inside a palatial mountain compound, the captive of a glamorous, surgically-enhanced blonde named Honey, she soon realizes she is going to learn about her past whether she likes it or not. What happens next only could in one place: North Korea.

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It's war at the School of Visual Arts, and nobody's art is safe. Not even Jackson Pollock's! Your archenemy taunts you with clandestine bacon frying. Your boss feverishly cyberstalks an aging romance novel cover model. Your husband unexpectedly takes in a wayward foreign national. Your best friend reveals a secret relationship with your longstanding workplace crush. Welcome to the life of Nina Lanning, lone and floundering administrator of a prestigious Midwestern art school. Her colleagues are pioneers of contemporary art movements, inspirational orators, creative virtuosos and the source of constant headaches as they rage against the authority Nina represents. They also happen to be her closest friends. When once-a-century flooding threatens to destroy the art building, and the priceless Jackson Pollock trapped inside, Nina and her ragtag band of faculty members undertake to rescue the early work of the splatter master. Propelled by disasters both natural and personal, Nina must confront her colleagues, her husband, and most importantly, herself. Cate Dicharry's debut novel is a painfully hysterical examination of what is truly worth saving, and mastering the art of letting go.

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Michael was only 15 when a mysterious accident changed his life forever. He was rebuilt out of paper by his father, and ten years later he is still trapped in the paper version of his teenage body. To escape his stagnant life at home, he runs away to the city by the sea, which promises art and adventure. Instead, Michael discovers the city is tearing at the seams. With rumors swirling that a militarized north will annex the city, newcomer Michael has more to worry about than the unpredictable seaside weather. After being rescued from a rainstorm by Maiko, an unemployed fur model, Michael's cruel high school sweetheart Mischa suddenly reappears. Michael becomes torn between loyalty to Maiko and Mischa's decadent underground art world. But when he finds himself drawn to the city's most notorious artist, David Doppelmann, Michael begins another dangerous transformation, one that will either lead to uncovering his true self, or destroy him and everyone he cares about. Part fable, part surrealistic journey, Gallagher Lawson's impressive debut is a gripping narrative about the nature of artistic identity and its tenuous relationship to the greater good, Lawson has created a visionary, allegorical novel of our time.

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Rus is a creature of habit. His mother left him an apartment and a debit card, from which he withdraws money everyday to purchase a drink at Starbucks. Until Rus is told by a government agency that his apartment is illegal and that he owes taxes. Lots of taxes. Rus panics and his cash is stolen by a smooth talking Russian submarine captain. Meanwhile, as Rus capitulates to the demands of society and finds an office job with the help of a micro-managing new girlfriend, the neighborhood's local postal worker surveys the lives of its other residents with an omniscient eye: Mrs. Blue compulsively steals hand creams; a secretary struggles to make conversation (much less human connections); a delivery man desperately seeks to make a name for himself but struggles with his immigrant status; and an aging bachelor, hampered by extreme paranoia, will finally have the chance to meet the Queen (if he can just hold it together long enough). With Rus at the head of this lonely ensemble's search for meaning in a complicated and alienating world, debut novelist Adriaanse weaves together intersecting lives to create a mini-epic, one that charts a hidden resistance to corporate sameness and artificial relationships.

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"The novel serves ingeniously as a Rorschach test for our own perceptions and concerns, leading us to look for the answers and logic we want... anyone enjoying the experimental, the strange and the dreamy — not to mention Tifft’s exquisitely specific and strange descriptions — will surely find much pleasure in From Hell to Breakfast." —Washington Post Lucinda’s boyfriend Dracula claims to be the Dracula—he sleeps in a coffin, hunts pigeons for blood, and only goes out at night. But is he really? Unsettlingly, there has been a spate of recent disappearances and Dracula may be connected. Lucinda doesn’t know for sure or which is more dangerous: dating an immortal vampire or a UPS driver with a night shift who thinks he’s one?While Dracula sleeps, Lucinda works at a smoothie shop where her boss is a creep, and their neighbor is always either belting out Whitney Houston or yelling in Russian through the walls. Lucinda focuses on the play she’s written that’s being produced by the community theatre and a pair of sibling actors, Rory and Lauren, she’s met there.Rory is clearly infatuated with Lucinda, and while she is out all day Dracula ruminates on next steps. Their other neighbor is a bicycle cop who clearly has it out for him, the landlord claims to have never seen Lucinda, and Lucinda’s brother Warren is constantly asking for Dracula’s help killing birds for his art. As the play’s premiere draws nearer, sinister forces are at work, though it may just be the fault of amateur actors. Meghan Tifft creates an alternate small town America, one brimming with strange delights and dark curiosities, where you can be whoever you want, thought not really, and somebody’s dinner is always another person’s breakfast.

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Broke and homeless at 30, Kelly Enright flees Arizona. Returning to her hometown of Portland, ME, her only plan is to track down her estranged but well-off father. But her twin brother, Max, is living in their deceased mother's home, and if anyone's more screwed up than Kelly, it's disheveled, misanthropic Max. Max has just one obsession: film. In particular, his own unfinished project from a decade earlier, which he believes is a masterpiece in the making. He dreams of completing it, but there's a major problem: Evelyn, his actress and muse, has recently disappeared. After seeing her name in the credits of a famous cult film shot in their hometown, Max thinks Evelyn's disappearance has something to do with the film, and an upcoming festival devoted to it. Kelly's arrival upsets Max's plans for finding Evelyn. Enter Penelope Hayward, the film's star and Kelly's high school best friend. Now a major Hollywood star, Penelope arrives in Portland as the festival's guest of honor. As Max's search for his lost leading lady becomes increasingly, absurdly self-destructive, Kelly must help her brother, who has never recovered from their mother's death.

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Seismologist Charlie Richter, grandson of the inventor of the Richter scale, knows earthquakes, and has a method for predicting them. Arriving in Los Angeles to begin work at the Center for Earthquake Studies, a mysterious agency that seems more Hollywood than science, Charlie settles into his new life. His only distraction from work is Grace, an assistant to a powerful producer, and her deadbeat scriptwriter boyfriend Ian. It's only a matter of time before Charlie sees the "Big One" looming on the horizon. When Charlie alerts his boss at the Center, he is the one that's in for a shock: this is exactly what the Center was hoping for. With the news leaked, everyone's suddenly looking to produce the next disaster blockbuster. One of the few scripts Ian actually wrote, Ear to the Ground, happens to be about an earthquake disaster, and soon it's plucked from obscurity and given the fast track. But with a little bit of luck, Charlie may just foil everybody's plans. He just needs explosives, a helicopter, a little more time. By award-winning writer and Los Angeles Times book critic David Ulin, Ear to the Ground is a rollicking visit back to the 1990s.

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"Florence Satine and Buenaventura Escobar live and die by the luck of the draw from the Scrabble tile bag in Tunnard’s delightful debut." —Publishers Weekly In an alternate 90s where Scrabble (not poker) is a global sensation broadcast live on ESPN, former world champs Florence Satine and Buenaventura Escobar meet deep in Argentina’s Tigre Delta for one final game. The words they play spell out how they ended up here, and why they are probably going to die. By 1996, Scrabble is big business. The once innocent game has gone pro, becoming the third-most televised “sport” in the world, and earning its major players fame, fortune and corporate sponsorships. The league, however, is tightly controlled by a Scrabble mafia (e.g., The Scrafia) and is suffering from a scourge of corruption, match-fixing, and most disturbingly, the mysterious disappearances of problematic players. When Florence and Buenaventura defy the sinister Scrafia, they recall the unlikely obsession that dominated their lives: a tumultuous romance…with a game. This is the story of a Scrabble reality that never was, but should have been. A bilingual, lexicographical romp across the world, Escapes raises the stakes with each new letter placed upon the rack.

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“Bethany C. Morrow achieves the nearly impossible feat of creating truly new speculative fiction; reading it feels like discovery.” — BuzzFeed In Jazz Age Montreal, an underground Vault imprisons living memories. Known as Mems, theses physical clones of other people are doomed to experience a single memory over and over—one that belongs not to them, but to the memory’s original Source. Lacking thoughts or personality of their own, Mems expire inside the Vault, where they are monitored by scientists known as Bankers. That is, except for one 19-year-old Mem—Dolores Extract n. 1—who shocks the world with the capacity to make her own memories. With the help of the doctor who created her, Dolores is released from captivity and establishes an independent life in the glittering city. She is a beautiful enigma, celebrated by a public obsessed with this dangerous procedure. When she is suddenly summoned back to the Vault, she must confront the Bankers and her own Source to discover the ultimate truth: is she human, or not?

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