1973, Indian badminton player.

    Unfolding through a series of letters written by an unnamed narrator, Last Words tells the story of a passionate relationship between two young women—their sexual awakening, their gradual breakup, and the devastating aftermath of their broken love. In a style that veers between extremes, from self-deprecation to pathos, compulsive repetition to rhapsodic musings, reticence to vulnerability, Qiu’s genre-bending novel is at once a psychological thriller, a sublime romance, and the author’s own suicide note.The letters (which, Qiu tells us, can be read in any order) leap between Paris, Taipei, and Tokyo. They display wrenching insights into what it means to live between cultures, languages, and genders—until the genderless character Zoë appears, and the narrator’s spiritual and physical identity is transformed. As powerfully raw and transcendent as Mishima’s Confessions of a Mask, Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther, and Theresa Cha’s Dictée, to name but a few, Last Words from Montmartre proves Qiu Miaojin to be one of the finest experimentalists and modernist Chinese-language writers of our generation.

    Risk taking is his specialty. But now that he’s survived yet another dangerous mission in Afghanistan, he’s exhausted and looks forward to rest and relaxation. The fewer problems, the better as far as he’s concerned.Emily Jones knows how to handle anything that comes her way. It’s what she’s done since her parents were killed in a freak accident. She took on the role of parent to her brothers and sister and wouldn’t have it any other way.What begins as a pleasant siesta from the horrors of the world soon transforms into the last thing Kash needs—a noisy tenant in his rental property next door. The biggest surprise is the lone adult of the bunch. She is definitely something to look at from the back, but the noise coming out of that backyard is more than he can handle.As Emily settles into life in the new house, she looks forward to a life with her younger siblings, but someone is determined to make sure she never feels safe. She doesn’t know why, but she’s sure someone is following her. Now the only question is… should she enlist the help of her handsome yet grouchy landlord or can she tackle this problem on her own?

    Her boyfriend turns out to be a vindictive jerk bent on making her life hell, and as icing on the cake the apocalypse happens while she's trying to sort things out. Thanks to a past she'd rather forget, Ran is ready to handle what comes next. Armed with an endless supply of facts (and an armory full of guns, obviously), she finds herself allied with a stranger and aimed at a singular goal: survive and help others do the same.

    The poems follow an unlikely character named Miss Peach, an unpredictable, cartoonish shapeshifter, who emerges onto the page dragging the myth of the individual, various gender scripts, and the grand tradition of the poetic persona along with her. She becomes an outsider, a hero, an intruder, a rock star. The town around her, Gold River, is also always in flux—part center and part mirage. The Stranger Manual celebrates the fractious nature of self and society in poems that are fabulist, speculative, and alluring.

    These poems, many of them award-winning, span a wide range of styles-from plainsong free verse to sestinas to nearly epic works. The characters/speakers in Beers' poems range from the rural working class to mythological characters. These poems look at the world with an honest, unflinching eye. She is one of the up-and-coming poets from Generation X we will be hearing a great deal from in the future.

    

    Chang sweeps together myth and fairy tale, skirting the edges of events to focus on the psychological tenor of experience: the underpinnings of identity and the role of nature in both constructing and erasing a self. From the edge of the ocean, where things constantly shift and dissolve, through "the forest's thick, / where the trees meet the dark," to an imaginary cliffside town of fog, this book makes a journey both natural and psychological, using experiments in language and form to capture the search for personhood and place.

    Tracing how these ideas evolved, and drawing from history, the authors disrupt long-held and enduring myths such as:"Columbus Discovered America""Thanksgiving Proves the Indians Welcomed Pilgrims""Indians Were Savage and Warlike""Europeans Brought Civilization to Backward Indians""The United States Did Not Have a Policy of Genocide""Sports Mascots Honor Native Americans""Most Indians Are on Government Welfare""Indian Casinos Make Them All Rich""Indians Are Naturally Predisposed to Alcohol"Each chapter deftly shows how these myths are rooted in the fears and prejudice of European settlers and in the larger political agendas of a settler state aimed at acquiring Indigenous land and tied to narratives of erasure and disappearance. Accessibly written and revelatory, "All the Real Indians Died Off" challenges readers to rethink what they have been taught about Native Americans and history.

    In 1633 Al-Shouf, a mother keeps demons at bay with the combined power of grief and music. In 1775 Paris, as social tensions come to a boil, a courtesan tries to save the woman she loves. In 1838 Georgia, a pregnant woman's desperate escape from slavery comes with a terrible price. In 1900 Ilocos Norte, a forest spirit helps a young girl defend her land from American occupiers. These gripping stories have been passed down through the generations, hidden between the lines of journal entries and love letters. Now 27 of today's finest authors – including Tananarive Due, Sofia Samatar, Ken Liu, Victor LaValle, Nnedi Okorafor, and Sabrina Vourvoulias – reveal the people whose lives have been pushed to the margins of history.

    But now he's back in her life, and ready to steal a heritage protection contract that could make or break her career--if he doesn't steal her heart first. Samantha's vowed to hate him, but it's more than anger heating the competition between them. With sparks flying across the conference table and sizzling in every touch, Dean proposes a weekend liaison. Anything to have Sam again; anything to get her out of his system. But the unresolved feelings between them complicate both their personal and professional lives, and one wild weekend could turn into a disaster that would destroy the one job that means more to Samantha than anything. For a shot at love...is it worth the risk?

    Here the characters' lives are linked to each other by acts of generosity or cruelty. A critic once called Rakoff "magnificent," a word which perfectly describes this wonderful novel in verse.

    Louis's realistic novel of life on Pine Ridge Reservation, the story of two brothers--one a rez cop, the other an alcoholic--and their relationship with each other, with their people, with their environment. Chris Eyre's film version of SKINS is scheduled for release by Firstlook Pictures in August 2002. A cloth edition of SKINS was published by Crown in 1995. It is now out of print.

    He’s sex with a Southern accent and a guitar, and he makes her heart go from zero to sixty just by darting his intense moss green eyes in her direction. But he’s also the grandson of the woman who took Kinsey in when she had no one else—and that means he’s off-limits. Too bad for Kinsey that word isn’t in Emmett’s vocabulary. But want, need, and more sure as hell are. **NOTE: Set eight years before the standalone novel SECOND VERSE (Coming July 2015), this prequel novella tells the story of Kinsey and Emmett’s first moments together. Both stories are intended for mature audiences.

    Mythology expert Caroline Capello agreed to marry Loki, the Norse god of fire and lies.She didn’t realize the most dangerous part of their marriage might be the honeymoon.