Now, in Stay Awake, Chaon returns to that form for the first time since his masterly Among the Missing, a finalist for the National Book Award.In these haunting, suspenseful stories, lost, fragile, searching characters wander between ordinary life and a psychological shadowland. They have experienced intense love or loss, grief or loneliness, displacement or disconnection—and find themselves in unexpected, dire, and sometimes unfathomable situations.A father’s life is upended by his son’s night terrors—and disturbing memories of the first wife and child he abandoned; a foster child receives a call from the past and begins to remember his birth mother, whose actions were unthinkable; a divorced woman experiences her own dark version of “empty-nest syndrome”; a young widower is unnerved by the sudden, inexplicable appearances of messages and notes—on dollar bills, inside a magazine, stapled to the side of a tree; and a college dropout begins to suspect that there’s something off, something sinister, in his late parents’ house.Dan Chaon’s stories feature scattered families, unfulfilled dreamers, anxious souls. They exist in a twilight realm—in a place by the window late at night when the streets are empty and the world appears to be quiet. But you are up, unable to sleep. So you stay awake.

    Did you know that the Japanese language has a word to express the way sunlight filters through the leaves of trees? Or that there’s a Finnish word for the distance a reindeer can travel before needing to rest? Lost in Translation brings to life more than fifty words that don’t have direct English translations with charming illustrations of their tender, poignant, and humorous definitions. Often these words provide insight into the cultures they come from, such as the Brazilian Portuguese word for running your fingers through a lover’s hair, the Italian word for being moved to tears by a story, or the Swedish word for a third cup of coffee. In this clever and beautifully rendered exploration of the subtleties of communication, you’ll find new ways to express yourself while getting lost in the artistry of imperfect translation.

    A decade. In dog and cat years it's even longer, and in cartooning years, well, it's just plain rare to maintain the popularity and consistent excellence that MUTTS and Patrick McDonnell have achieved. In The Best of MUTTS the 17th-and first-ever hardcover with Andrews McMeel Publishing- MUTTS cartoon collection, McDonnell selects his favorite strips from the past 10 years.* Certain to be a much-sought-after holiday gift and a special tome for collectors and fans, this collection is divided into ten chapters, each featuring an introduction by McDonnell.* Earl and Mooch, along with supporting sidekicks Shtinky Puddin', Sourpuss, Guard Dog, and Crabby, are featured. Including the Gift of Nothing, the introduction of the pink sock, belly rubs, angel visits, and the formation of the MUTTS Book Club, this treasury collects more than 300 poignantly entertaining MUTTS strips.* Always striking a delicate balance between lighthearted fun and responsible social commentary, McDonnell's work has been recognized by critics and the popular press for its distinctive style, heartwarming humor, and strong yet non-preachy stand on responsible pet ownership, animal protection and advocacy, art and artist appreciation, the celebration of nature, and the sanctity of all life.* MUTTS appears in 700 newspapers in over 20 countries and receives about two million visits each month to its official Web site, muttscomics.com

    Unconventional, raw, and impossible to categorize, his work continues to provide powerful criticism of American culture, a society defined by excess and determined to break the human spirit.Born in Germany in 1920, Bukowski did not begin writing until the age of 40. Still, he managed to publish 45 books—six of them novels—capturing the brilliant range of his perspective. His voice was one of dry humor, a general distaste for society, dysphoria, and—from time to time—a bit of madness. Bukowski’s gritty, blunt growl was one of the greatest to rise out of Los Angeles—a city hiding behind fantasies of wealth and progress—and expose its contradictions and delusions.In Bukowski For Beginners, playwright Carlos Polimeni evaluates the life and literary achievements of the man behind the antipathy; the father of words—no, calls to action!—that linger still, rousing and challenging readers globally.

    Special Edition:The special edition is signed by James, and includes a colour bookplate on the inside cover with the edition number as well as a dediction or note inside the book.

    Only 100 copies of this chapbook exist.

    Delaney, Barbara Gowdy, and others. 15,000 first printing.

    The only hitch in this perfect romance is her prospective sister-in-law who thinks Misha is everything a Bahu shouldn’t be: garrulous, geeky, gawky, gainfully employed (especially the last bit). The questions is will Misha win Didi (and the Kha-Pee Panchayat) over with her Stepford Wife Act? Will she continue to be the poster child for the inherent evils of the Bahu Brigade? Or will she learn to ‘lau’ herself before the whole world and its wife can do the same?

    Now, David Rees returns to do it once again--just in time for the most anticipated election in years. He's taking on the Bush Doctrine, Operation Iraqi Freedom, the war in Afghanistan, tax cuts, the 2004 campaign--and much, much more!

    It has pictures. It has a saccharine-sweet title. The main characters are a little girl and her teddy bear. But all of that is just protective coloration. The truth is, this is a book for adults with a dark sense of humor and an appreciation of old-school faerie tales.There are three separate endings to the book. Depending on where you stop, you are left with an entirely different story. One ending is sweet, another is horrible. The last one is the true ending, the one with teeth in it.The Adventures of the Princess and Mr. Whiffle is a dark twist on the classic children's picture-book. I think of it as Calvin and Hobbes meets Coraline, with some Edward Gorey mixed in.Simply said: This is not a book for children.

    Death, Duck and the Tulip will intrigue, haunt and enchant readers of all ages. Simple, unusual, warm and witty, this book deals with a difficult subject in a way that is elegant, straightforward, and thought-provoking.

    This collection by the author of Airships and Bats Out of Hell explores lost moments in time with intensity, emotion, and an eye to the past. In "Uncle High Lonesome," a young man recalls his Uncle Peter, whose even temper was marred only by his drinking binges, which would unleash moments of rage hinting at his much deeper distress. Fishing is transformed into a life-altering, almost mystical event in "A Creature in the Bay of St. Louis," when a huge fish caught on a line threatens to pull a young boy, and his entire world with him, underwater and out to sea. And in "Snerd and Niggero," a deep friendship between two men is inspired by the loss of a woman they both loved, a woman who was mistress to one and wife to the other. Viewed through memory and time's distance, Hannah's characters are brightly illuminated figures from a lost time, whose occassionally bleak lives are still uncommonly true.

    Hempel, fiercely admired by writers and reviewers, has a sterling reputation that is based on four very short collections of stories, roughly fifteen thousand stunning sentences, written over a period of nearly three decades. These are stories about people who make choices that seem inevitable, whose longings and misgivings evoke eternal human experience. With compassion, wit, and the acutest eye, Hempel observes the marriages, minor disasters, and moments of revelation in an uneasy America. When "Reasons to Live, " Hempel's first collection, was published in 1985, readers encountered a pitch-perfect voice in fiction and an unsettling assessment of the culture. That collection includes "San Francisco," which Alan Cheuse in "The Chicago Tribune" called "arguably the finest short story composed by any living writer." In "At the Gates of the Animal Kingdom, " her second collection, frequently compared to the work of Raymond Carver, Hempel refined and developed her unique grace and style and her unerring instinct for the moment that defines a character. Also included here, in their entirety, are the collections "Tumble Home" and "The Dog of the Marriage." As Rick Moody says of the title novella in Tumble Home, "the leap in mastery, in seriousness, and sheer literary purpose was inspiring to behold.... And yet," he continues, ""The Dog of the Marriage, " the fourth collection, is even better than the other three...a triumph, in fact." "The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel" is the perfect opportunity for readers of contemporary American fiction to catch up to one of its masters. Moody's passionate and illuminating introduction celebrates both the appeal and the importance of Hempel's work.

    H. Munro—better known as Saki—deftly, mercilessly, and hilariously skewer the banality and hypocrisy of polite upper-class English society between the end of Queen Victoria’s reign and the beginning of World War I. Their heroes are clever, amoral children and other enfants terribles who marshal their considerable wit and imagination against the cruelty or fatuousness of a decorous and doomed world.Here, Saki’s brilliantly polished dark gems comes paired with illustrations by the peerless Edward Gorey, available for the first time in an English language edition. The whose fragile elegance and creeping menace of Gorey’s pen-and-ink drawings perfectly complement Saki’s population of delicate ladies, mischief-making charges, spectral guests, sardonic house pets, flustered authority figures, and delightfully preposterous imposters.

    Opening the flaps on this unique little book, readers will find themselves immersed in the strange world of best-selling Haruki Murakami's wild imagination.The story of a lonely boy, a mysterious girl, and a tormented sheep man plotting their escape from a nightmarish library, the book is like nothing else Murakami has written. Designed by Chip Kidd and fully illustrated in full color throughout, this small format, 96-page volume is a treat for book lovers of all ages.