As avant-garde novelist Antony Lamont struggles to write a "new wave murder mystery," his frustrating emotional and sexual life wreaks havoc on his work-in-progress. As a result, his narrative (the very book we are reading) turns into a literary "stew": an uproariously funny melange of journal entries, erotic poetry, parodies of all kinds, love letters, interviews, and lists - as Hugh Kenner in Harper's wrote, "for another such virtuoso of the List you'd have to resurrect Joyce." Soon Lamont's characters (on loan from F. Scott Fitzgerald, Flann O'Brien, James Joyce, and Dashiell Hammett) take on lives of their own, completely sabotaging his narrative.

    Eight years later, Rebecca’s son and young Lena Pearl begin keeping company in secret. Rebecca agrees to a truce when the couple marries. But the truce is fragile. Rebecca’s resentments run deep.In 2010, Carolyn Lee, fitness instructor and amateur photographer, must come to grips with the fact that her mother’s imminent death will leave her alone in the world. While preparing her childhood home for sale, she realizes for the first time that her mother’s antique brooch is identical to the one pinned to the lady’s dress in the painting hanging above the fireplace. Coincidence or connection? Carolyn is determined to find out. What she discovers has the potential to tear lives apart or to bring her the closeness and comfort she longs for. It all depends on how she handles her newfound knowledge.

    The story of Martiniano, the man who killed the deer, is a timeless story of Pueblo Indian sin and redemption, and of the conflict between Indian and white laws; written with a poetically charged beauty of style, a purity of conception, and a thorough understanding of Indian values.

    His latest poetry collection, published on the eve of his trip to Vilnius, is about to cause some controversy in his home country—Sturla is publicly accused of having stolen the poems from his long-dead cousin, Jónas.Then there’s Sturla’s new overcoat, the first expensive item of clothing he has ever purchased, which causes him no end of trouble. And the article he wrote for a literary journal, which points out the stupidity of literary festivals and declares the end of his career as a poet. Sturla has a lot to deal with, and that’s not counting his estranged wife and their five children, nor the increasingly bizarre experiences and characters he’s forced to confront at the festival in Vilnius . . .

    Kirstin Beck is determined to escape to the West. She watches from her townhouse window as the border with West Berlin is closed, and a barbed wire fence strung through the cemetery behind her house. With a grandmother in West Berlin that needs her, Kirstin knows she has to go.Tony Marino is an American writer living in West Berlin. As he watches the nearby construction progress, he sees a beautiful woman looking from her townhouse window. Kirstin holds up a sign for Tony to see.HELP ME.The two hatch a plan for Kirstin to get over the border, but the mission is not easy. With the Stasi closing in on them, Kirstin and Tony enter a kaleidoscope of deceit and danger, determined to attain freedom at any cost. But in a country torn between communism and capitalism, can Kirstin escape the world she can't endure?

    Her father has insisted she marry a man with a title, but the men her father deems acceptable are either boring or are only interested in increasing their own diminishing coffers. With her future looking dismal, Olivia vows to enjoy the last few months of freedom with her childhood friends, including Emerson Latham. His devilish smile and flirtatious teasing stirs up feelings she knows she cannot entertain.Emerson is struggling to rise to his responsibilities after his father's death. Though he is still learning his place, one thing he knows for certain is that he wants Olivia Wilde to be his wife. Emerson had long ago fallen in love with her quick wit, beauty, and passionate heart. Yet, without a title, he will never be permitted to court Olivia openly. But he has a plan that may give him a chance to court her in secret.As the Season kicks off, Emerson proposes a playful game of tag. Olivia's friends are delighted by the idea, though Olivia is wary. After all, the game must be played in secret as they tag each other at dinners and balls. As the romance builds between Olivia and Emerson, so does the risk of being discovered. Not only are their reputations at stake, so is their safety if they are caught by Olivia's strict father.Can their love find a happily ever after before the game ends?

    In this utterly unconventional novel-or is it a memoir?-Leyner gives a reading in the food court of a New Jersey shopping mall. The "audience" consists of Mark's mother and some stray Panda Express employees, who ask a handful of questions. The action takes place entirely at the food court, but the territory covered in these pages has no bounds.A joyride of autobiography, cultural critique, DIY philosophy, biopolitics, video games, demagoguery, and the most intimate confessions, GONE WITH THE MIND is both a soulful reckoning with mortality and the tender story of the relationship between a complicated mother and an even more complicated son.At once nostalgic and acidic, deeply humane and completely surreal, GONE WITH THE MIND is a work of pure, hilarious genius."The blazingly inventive fictional autobiography of Mark Leyner, one of America's "rare, true original voices" (Gary Shteyngart).

    Now someone is about to commit history’s most daring theft… Queen Azura would sacrifice her life to fulfill her ancestors’ sacred mission. For thousands of years the Sentinels have safeguarded Eden and the Tree of Immortality. But one fateful night she awakens to find a man with a bullet wound in his head and an empty branch where the apple once hung.He has no memories, not even his name. Nursed back to health by stern islanders who demand answers, he worries his nightmares of secret gates and a monstrous seven-headed serpent may be real. And if he doesn’t piece together the visions soon, his caretakers could become his executioners.As the strange man struggles to recall how he came to the island, Azura fears someone has the means to defeat all their safeguards. And with the temptation of life everlasting, it’s only a matter of time before the would-be-killer strikes again.Can Azura and the outsider solve the riddle before Eden’s final secret is exploited for evil?The Apple is an innovative, fast-paced thriller. If you like unique puzzles, ancient legends, and a pulse-pounding twist on a familiar story, then you’ll love Devashish Sardana’s action-packed adventure. Buy The Apple to bite into a spectacular, wild ride today!

    In December 1983, a priest in the Italian hill town of Calcata shared shocking news with his congregation: The pride of their town, the foreskin of Jesus, had been stolen. Some postulated that it had been stolen by Satanists. Some said the priest himself was to blame. Some even pointed their fingers at the Vatican. In 2006, travel writer David Farley moved to Calcata, determined to find the missing foreskin, or at least find out the truth behind its disappearance. Farley recounts how the relic passed from Charlemagne to the papacy to a marauding sixteenth-century German solider before finally ending up in Calcata, where miracles occurred that made the sleepy town a major pilgrimage destination. Over the centuries, as Catholic theology evolved, the relic came to be viewed as something of an embarrassment, culminating in a 1900 Church decree that allowed the parish to display it only on New Year’s Day. An Irreverent Curiosity interweaves this history with the curious landscape of Calcata, a beautiful and untouched medieval village set atop four-hundred-fifty-foot cliffs, which now, due to the inscrutable machinations of Italian bureaucracy, is a veritable counterculture coven. Blending history, travel, and perhaps the oddest story in Christian lore, An Irreverent Curiosity is a weird and wonderful tale of conspiracy and misadventure.Winner of the 2010 Lowell Thomas Tavel Journalism Award for best book. Listed: "One of the Best Travel Books of 2009"--The Los Angeles Times--WorldHum.com"One of the Best Books of the Decade"--The Dubuque Telegraph Herald"[Farley's] ribald detective story ... is like a cross between 'The Da Vinci Code' and 'Life of Brian' ... [a] charming yarn."--The New York Times"Told with gusto, good humor, and a healthy respect for eccentricity, Farley's quixotic account is an eloquent testament to the power of travel--and travail--to entertain and illuminate."--National Geographic Traveler "Genre bending at its best." --Kirkus Reviews (Starred review)

    In a Vienna window, he glimpses the face of a lost erotic dream, and from there travels to the Twentieth Century's darkest corner to confront its shocked and secret conscience. One of Steve Erickson's most acclaimed novels, Tours of the Black Clock crosses the intersections of passion and power and gazes into a clock with no face, where memory is the gravity of time and all the numbers fall like rain.

    For Omaha nurse Elisabeth Holland, it’s a shock that her brother is even alive. Now she must ask herself a more grave question: Is he a hostage or a traitor?Seasoned FBI special agent Frank Schwaller is asking this too. He’s come to Nebraska armed with countless hours of video, audio, and email surveillance. The object of his unyielding gaze is Elisabeth. But the more Schwaller uncovers about her—from her and Tyler’s evangelical Christian upbringing to her shattered youthful dreams to her broken marriage to a drifter—the more mystifying Elisabeth and the two men in her life become.To find out the truth about these entwined lives—and the desperation that comes from love, fear, and the need to disappear—Agent Schwaller will discover how even the most lonesome corners of the Plains can be darkened by the long shadow of war.From Kings of Broken Things author Theodore Wheeler comes an exploration of love lost, the failure of humanism, and the revelations of how deeply the US government spies on the personal lives of its citizens.

    The insects are vying for world domination; the inventors of electricity stand in evil opposition. Bug , a young man, rebels against his own kind and joins forces with the insects. Wayne, a thug, allies himself with the malevolent forces of electricity and vows to assassinate the preying mantis who tends bar in Oregon. A brusque La Pasionara with the sprightly name of Millie leads an intrepid band of revolutionaries. You Bright and Risen Angels is the work of an extraordinary imagination. In this free-wheeling novel of epic proportions, William T. Vollmann has crafted a biting, hilarious satire of history, technology, politics, and misguided love.

    His theories on the evolutionary tensions between parent and offspring, sibling and sibling, man and woman, friend and friend, and a person and himself or herself have not only revolutionized genetics and evolutionary biology but have influenced disciplines from medicine and the social sciences to history, economics, and literary studies. But unlike other renowned scientists, Trivers has spent time behind bars, drove a getaway car for Huey P. Newton, and founded an armed group in Jamaica to protect gay men from mob violence. Now, in the entertaining tradition of Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman, Trivers tell us in his inimitable voice about the inimitable life behind the revolutionary science. He comments with irreverent wit and penetrating insight on everything from American racism to the history of psychiatry to who killed Peter Tosh, musical heir to Bob Marley. Sprinkled with anecdotes about such luminaries as Richard Dawkins and Stephen Jay Gould, and with photographs throughout, this volume is sure to enlighten and entertain anyone with an interest in science, the human condition, or the nature of creative genius. PRAISE FOR WILD LIFE"To call Robert Trivers an acclaimed biologist is an understatement akin to calling the late Richard Feynman a popular professor of physics." -- PSYCHOLOGY TODAY"Who would have guessed that arguably today’s most original thinker in evolutionary theory could possibly have led the extraordinary life Robert Trivers recounts in these pages. We are taken on a wild trip from inspired meditations on the biology of self deception, through a steamy Jamaican underworld, to Black Panthers in California, to frank appraisals of distinguished or over-rated scientists, the whole adding up to a disarmingly frank and utterly unique memoir of a rollercoaster of a life. -- RICHARD DAWKINS, bestselling author of The Selfish Gene and The God Delusion“Robert Trivers is not just a brilliant evolutionary thinker but a world-class raconteur, adventurer, kibitzer, people-watcher, jester, and provocateur. This memoir is filled with sharp and hilarious observations about the living world, not least a certain species of hairless primate, not least a certain member of that species named Robert Trivers.” – STEVEN PINKER,best-selling author of How the Mind Works and The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined“It would not be hyperbole to say that Robert Trivers is one of the most important evolutionary theorists since Charles Darwin. But contrary to the image most people have of theoretical scientists as stodgy intellectuals holed up in their offices buried in paper, Trivers' memoir reveals a man whose life has been wild in every sense of the word. A lust for life doesn’t begin to sum up a career devoted to truth, courage, and the audacity to think what no one else has thought, and to act in ways few others would dare (you’ll even learn how to defend yourself in a knife fight). If that were not enough, Trivers is witty, clever, and compassionate. This book is destined to become a classic in scientific autobiography." -- MICHAEL SHERMER, Editor in Chief, The SkepticABOUT THE AUTHORRobert Trivers is a professor of anthropology and biological sciences at Rutgers University.

    The satire is broad, and uses southern culture cliches but is often very funny. Some of the names of the girls at the school, for example, are Mimsy Borogoves, Barbara Celarent, and Pengwynn Custiss.The story is said to be based on Theroux's years of teaching at Longwood University, and places described in the book are easily recognized buildings on the campus.[citation needed]

    In this breathtaking short story collection, she turns the concept of truth over in her hands like a beautifully crafted pair of gloves. From the triumph of the Orange Revolution, which marked the start of the twenty-first century, to domestic victories in matchmaking, sibling rivalry, and even tennis, Zabuzhko manages to shock the reader by juxtaposing things as they are—inarguable, visible to the naked eye—with how things could be, weaving myth and fairy tale into pivotal moments just as we weave a satisfying narrative arc into our own personal mythologies.At once intimate and worldly, these stories resonate with Zabuzhko’s irreverent and prescient voice, echoing long after reading.