Angel & Hannah: A Novel in Verse


Ishle Park - 2021
    Hannah, who comes from a strict Korean home, meets Angel, a free and beautiful boy, at a quincea�era:Beyond flushed, sweating bodies pushed, pushing like cattle below black & buzzing speakers, under a torn pink streamerloose as a tendril of hair--lush--his eyes. Darkluminous. Warm. A blush floods her. Hannah sucks in her breath, but can't pull back. Music fades. A hush he's a young buck in the underbrush, still in a disco ball dance of shadow & lightTheir forbidden love instantly and wildly blooms along the Jackie Robinson Expressway.Told in seasons Angel & Hannah holds all of the tension and cadence of blank verse while adding dynamic and expressive language, creating new kinds of engrossing and magnetic forms. The hip-hop sonnets and poems are dynamic, arresting, observant, and magical, conveying the intimacies and sacrifices of love and addiction and the devastating realities of struggle and loss.Committed to cultural details and the vernacular of Queens and Brooklyn, this is a hip-hop love story, not of the Capulets and the Montagues, but two New York City kids trying to survive and grow within their families and communities, driven by an all-consuming love.

Me in Search of You: I promise there's more to it.


Jenna Langbaum - 2021
    Each piece is nameless in the hope that you’ll crawl into them and see yourself.

In Moonland


Miles Allinson - 2021
    It goes down into the guts of the world. But a child’s love for a parent is different. It goes up. It’s more ethereal. It’s not quite present on the earth.’In present-day Melbourne, a man attempts to piece together the mystery of his father’s apparent suicide, as his young family slowly implodes. At the ashram of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, in 1976, a man searching for salvation must confront his capacity for violence and darkness. And in a not-too-distant future, a woman with a life-altering decision to make travels through a climate-ravaged landscape to visit her estranged father.In Moonland is a portrait of three generations, each grappling with their own mortality. Spanning the wild idealism of the 70s through to the fragile hope of the future, it is a novel about the struggle for transcendence and the reverberating effects of family bonds. This long-awaited second outing from Miles Allinson, the multi-award-winning author of Fever of Animals, will affirm his reputation as one of Australia’s most interesting contemporary fiction writers, and urge us to see our own political and environmental reality in a new light.

Nectar


Upile Chisala - 2017
    In this book, Upile guides through a beautiful process of blooming starting with some poems on self love then words on our roots followed by acknowledging all the fruit of these experiences. The storyteller's hope is that these poems on growth encourage the reader to sow and to make changes in the lives of others. Born in 1994 and raised in Zomba, Upile's hope is to tell stories from the margins and through her work help others and herself come to terms with pasts, celebrate presents and confidently dream beautiful futures.

Ayesha's Gift: A daughter's search for the truth about her father


Martin Sixsmith - 2017
    She is warned that her life is in danger; powerful, ruthless men have reasons to want her silenced.   But there are things she needs to know, that compel her to press on with her search for the truth.    Was her father an innocent victim?  Can she continue to revere the image of him she grew up with, that of a good, loving parent?  Or will she be forced to accept that her father was not the person she thought he was?     Ayesha decides that the only way forward is to fly to Pakistan and confront his killers.    When she goes, Martin Sixsmith goes with her.   The denouement of their journey together is extraordinarily moving, with unforeseen repercussions for them both.

Lucky Wreck


Ada Limon - 2006
    Ada Limon's first full-length poetry book--startling and funny--Limon is a poet to keep your eye on.

Butcher


Natasha T. Miller - 2021
    Here, using the cuts of the cow as a metaphor Miller, explores addiction, family & tragedy.Butcher takes the body of a cow and cleaves it into 5 parts: envisioning the cuts as relationship with family members and social forces. Her Mother the rib, her Brother the brisket, her queerness as the tongue and cheek. Butcher is raw and tender. It’s a book that tells the story of a woman who redefined success after losing the most valuable thing to her.

Beneath an Indian Sky


Renita D'Silva - 2018
    In colonial India a young woman finds herself faced with an impossible choice, the consequences of which will echo through the generations… 1928. In British-ruled India, headstrong Sita longs to choose her own path, but her only destiny is a good marriage. After a chance meeting with a Crown Prince leads to a match, her family’s status seems secured and she moves into the palace, where peacocks fill the gardens and tapestries adorn the walls. But royal life is far from simple, and her failure to provide an heir makes her position fragile. Soon Sita is on the brink of losing everything, and the only way to save herself could mean betraying her oldest friend… 2000. When Priya’s marriage ends in heartbreak, she flees home to India and the palace where her grandmother, Sita, once reigned as Queen. But as grandmother and granddaughter grow closer, Priya has questions. Why is Sita so reluctant to accept that her royal status ended with Independence? And who is the mysterious woman who waits patiently at the palace gates day after day? Soon Priya uncovers a secret Sita has kept for years – and which will change the shape of her life forever… A breathtaking journey through India from British rule to Independence and beyond; a world of green hills, cardamom-scented air, and gold thread glinting in the sun, brought to life by Renita D’Silva’s exquisite writing. If you love Kathryn Hughes, Dinah Jefferies or Kristin Hannah, this is the novel for you. What readers are saying about Renita D’Silva: ‘WOW!!… I was absolutely blown away by this book and couldn’t put it down. I’m going straight to Amazon to buy another book by Renita D’Silva – I need more! Just incredible… this is an absolutely stunning book which I can’t praise enough.’ Roxanne Starr, 5 stars ‘So compelling I literally didn’t want to put it down… A sheer joy to read and I am putting myself out on a limb by saying this is the best book I have read in this genre this year… A truly outstanding book.’ Best Crime Books and More, 5 stars ‘Every now and again a book comes along that I can't stop thinking about long after I've turned the last page. A Daughter's Courage was one of those books… An absolutely beautiful story… I really can't say anything that will adequately describe how much I enjoyed this book so I will just say that I highly recommend it… I loved every minute of it.’ Twin Spin, 5 stars ‘Renita D’Silva has done it again… Truly sensational story… Stunning… Remarkable and overwhelming… Renita’s words are like liquid gold… This book even took over my dreams. My mind was completely mesmerised… I cannot recommend this book enough.’ Little Miss No Sleep, 5 stars ‘Heartrending... beautiful... a dream... I did not just love this book, I actually LIVED it. A Daughter's Courage is one of the most beautiful books I've ever read.

Deciding the Next Decider: The 2008 Presidential Race in Rhyme


Calvin Trillin - 2008
    And it carries through to the vote that made Barack Obama the forty-fourth president of the United States.

This Is How It Really Sounds


Stuart Archer Cohen - 2015
    Investors he has ruined, looming federal investigations, and a remote but alluring woman all converge on one hallucinatory night that ends in the labyrinth of an ancient Chinese garden. On the other side of the ocean, chasing the last vapors and diminishing sexual returns of fame in Los Angeles, faded rock star Pete Harrington is bankrupt. With no band, no hits, and no money, he suddenly finds one last flash of brilliance that sets him on an absurd and epic quest for revenge. Finally, there is Harry Harrington. Raised in a world of snow, ice, and avalanches, Alaskan Harry Harrington is the greatest extreme skier on the planet. A legend in a sport that few people have ever heard of, he descends from the slopes of Tahoe and Aspen to the sunny streets of Hollywood, looking for the connection that will change his life.Welcome to This Is How It Really Sounds, where the worlds of wealth, pop-culture celebrity, and physical prowess collide in a supernatural realm that is shared between three men, each in search of his Other Life. From an assassin moving through the treacherous streets of 1946 Shanghai to the twenty-first-century delirium of Internet fame, Stuart Archer Cohen's novel centers around a mysterious house that none of its denizens can fully remember, but none can ever forget. Part satire, part revenge tale, part wilderness adventure---with a heavy dash of noire espionage---This Is How It Really Sounds explores the seductive power of the Other Life, and what happens when you finally grasp it.

Blood Moon


Lucy Cuthew - 2020
    It’s only blood, they agree. But soon a gruesome meme goes viral, turning an intimate, affectionate afternoon into something sordid, mortifying, and damaging. In the time it takes to swipe a screen, Frankie’s universe implodes. Who can she trust? Not Harriet, her suddenly cruel best friend, and certainly not Benjamin, the only one who knows about the incident. As the online shaming takes on a horrifying life of its own, Frankie begins to wonder: is her real life over?Author Lucy Cuthew vividly portrays what it is to be a teen today with this fearless and ultimately uplifting novel in verse. Brimming with emotion, the story captures the intensity of friendships, first love, and female desire, while unflinchingly exploring the culture of online and menstrual shaming. Sure to be a conversation starter, Blood Moon is the unforgettable portrait of one girl’s fight to reclaim her reputation and to stand up against a culture that says periods are dirty.

City of Rivers


Zubair Ahmed - 2012
    "Zubair Ahmed’s first poetry collection City of Rivers captures the reader’s heart from its first line to its last. These poems are reminders of poetry’s power to leave us breathless after immersing us in truths, both wonderful and painful." - ZYZZYVA"...his poems are brief and beautiful, with final lines (“The light source is somewhere beyond / The years of my life.”) that should be scratched onto padlocks locked to the Pont des Arts over the Seine.... City of Rivers is a treasure you would do well to read." - Artvoice"While I imagine one of the reasons readers might find themselves interested in City of Rivers will be due to Ahmed’s relatively young age, such readers will invariably find themselves more interested in exploring the range of his vision and the confidence he seems to have hammered into every one of his sharp, stoic lines.... Ahmed possesses a profound understanding of the nature all poets, young and old, share—he recognizes that the words are a dream, that they haunt the body, and their constant buzzing, their inability to give us solace, keep us moving." - The Rumpus"Honestly, I’ve not yet read a contemporary poet of his equal." - Chico News Review"...a startling first collection of poems..." - Shelf-Awareness"This unusually compact and consistent debut from an unusually young poet might get noticed first for that poet’s unusual migratory life... Such work looks back productively to the American Deep Image style of the 1960s, to James Wright and the young Robert Bly." - Publisher's Weekly"Any poet would hope for the kind of praise that glows from the back cover of Zubair Ahmed’s debut poetry collection, City of Rivers. “Bracingly original…ushered into being by a prodigious new voice in America poetry.” Add to that the fact that Ahmed is only twenty-five, that his first book was published by McSweeney’s, and you have a rising star certainly worth keeping an eye on. Because—high as the book jacket praise might be—Ahmed lives up to it." - Late Night LibraryWe used to play soccer in the monsoon rains.Through my windows, I can see acres of fields,Lying in the ruins of the wind.The poems in City of Rivers—the first full-length collection from 23-year-old wunderkind Zubair Ahmed—are clear and cool as a glass of water. Grounded in his childhood in Bangladesh, Ahmed’s spare, evocative poems cast a knowing eye on the wider world, telling us what it’s like to be displaced and replaced, relocated and dislocated. His poems are suffused with a graceful, mysterious pathos—and also with joy, humor, and longing—with the full range of human emotions. City of Rivers is a remarkable and precocious debut.

The Bridge from Me to You


Lisa Schroeder - 2014
    Colby has a problem. But when they find each other, everything falls into place. Lauren is the new girl in town with a dark secret. Colby is the football hero with a dream of something more. In alternating chapters, they come together, fall apart, and build something stronger than either of them thought possible--something to truly believe in.

Home Is Not a Country


Safia Elhillo - 2021
    By her mother, who grew up far away in a different land. By her suburban town, which makes her feel too much like an outsider to fit in and not enough like an outsider to feel like that she belongs somewhere else. At least she has her childhood friend Haitham, with whom she can let her guard down and be herself. Until she doesn't.As the ground is pulled out from under her, Nima must grapple with the phantom of a life not chosen, the name her parents didn't give her at birth: Yasmeen. But that other name, that other girl, might just be more real than Nima knows. And more hungry. And the life Nima has, the one she keeps wishing were someone else's. . .she might have to fight for it with a fierceness she never knew she had.

Snow White Learns Witchcraft


Theodora Goss - 2019
    The tasks assigned a bookish boy lead him to fateful encounters with lizards, owls, trolls and a feisty, sarcastic cat. A bear wedding is cause for celebration, the spinning wheel and the tower in the briar hedge get to tell their own stories, and a kitchenmaid finds out that a lost princess is more than she seems. The sea witch reveals what she hoped to gain when she took the mermaid’s voice. A wiser Snow White sets out to craft herself a new tale. In these eight stories and twenty-three poems, World Fantasy Award winner Theodora Goss retells and recasts fairy tales by Charles Perrault, the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen, and Oscar Wilde. Sometimes harrowing, sometimes hilarious, always lyrical, the works gathered in SNOW WHITE LEARNS WITCHCRAFT re-center and empower the women at the heart of these timeless narratives.