The long-awaited return of a quintessentially American storyteller
“You’re as likely to be hit twice by lightning on a Monday as see a wood chipper pull a man into its maw.”
So begins North of Ordinary, John Rolfe Gardner’s virtuosic story collection of survivors getting by despite the odds in a shifting world. In these pages, we meet a nervous young apprentice to a weathered tree climber; a dangerously obsessed student at a Southern Bible college; an attractive schemer trying to build an audience for her tiny radio station; an undercover,
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Join Moomintroll, his family and their friends in beautiful Moominvalley, where everyone is welcome. Surprising things happen every day in Moominvalley – luckily the Moomin family and their friends embrace the unexpected with their characteristic humor, kindness and charm.
This beautiful book contains nine exciting adventure stories – all closely based on the warm and whimsical Moomin world and characters created by the celebrated writer, artist and illustrator Tove Jansson.
Presented in chronological order, each story in Adventures in Moominvalley is taken from an episode of the 3D animation series and set in the idyllic and peaceful valley where the round blue Moominhouse stands.
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A fastidious pet robot with a knack for knitting. A soporific giant pitching camp in the middle of a city. A mysterious mime whose upcoming performance has the whole town on edge.
The stories in Mark Polanzak’s BOA Short Fiction Prize-winning The OK End of Funny Town stitch fantastic situations into the drab fabric of everyday life. Polanzak delights in stretching every boundary he encounters, from the academic focus on practical learning at the New Community School, to the ever-changing tastes of diners in search of the next big trend in local cuisine.
Wondrous yet familiar,
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A lush, glittering short story collection exploring female obsession and desire by an award-winning author Roxane Gay calls “a consummate storyteller.”
From Kentucky to the California desert, these forty-two short stories — ranging from the 80’s and 90’s to present day — expose expose the hearts of girls and women in moments of obsessive desire and fantasy, wildness and bad behavior, brokenness and fearlessness, and more.
On a hot July night, teenage girls sneak out of the house to meet their boyfriends by the train tracks. Members of a cult form an unsettling chorus as they proclaim their adoration for the same man.
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Selected by Ben Marcus as winner of the Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction, Catapult follows Emily Fridlund’s acclaimed debut novel History of Wolves. Sometimes calculating, at other times bewildered, Catapult‘s characters orbit around each other, enacting a deeply human tragicomedy of wit, misunderstanding, and loss. With dexterous, atmospheric, and darkly comic prose, Fridlund conjures worlds where longing is open-ended, intentions misfire, and the line between comfort and cruelty is often difficult to discern. This is a gripping collection, unsettling as much in its familiarity as in its near-gothic strangeness.
Read our interview with the author on the Reading Group Choices blog!
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