With remarkable dexterity and an acerbic wit, Katharina Volckmer skewers the corporate workplace and watercooler relationships, culminating in an insightful and powerfully moving portrait of loneliness and human connection.

Jimmie works in a London call center, fielding complaints from dissatisfied travelers. Concerns range from whether compulsive itching will attract sharks in Mykonos, to the queue at the infinity pools in Maldives, to stray hairs on pillows: “the utterings of people at odds with their own hedonism, holidays made unenjoyable by their own expectations.” Today is different, Jimmie’s co-worker Elin warns him. Jimmie is on the chopping block, and his boss, Simon, has followed him into the bathroom during an unauthorized break to request an “urgent” meeting.

*One of the Best Books of 2013 —The Millions, Flavorwire, Dazed & Confused, The L Magazine, Time Out Chicago

"McClanahan's prose is miasmic, dizzying, repetitive. A rushing river of words that reflects the chaos and humanity of the place from which he hails. [McClanahan] aims to lasso the moon... He is not a writer of half-measures. The man has purpose. This is his symphony, every note designed to resonate, to linger."
—Allison Glock, New York Times Book Review

Synopsis

Crapalachia is a portrait of Scott McClanahan’s formative years, coming of age in rural West Virginia, during a stretch of time where he was deeply influenced by his Grandma Ruby and Uncle Nathan, who suffered from cerebral palsy. 

Peopled by colorful characters and their quirky stories, Crapalachia interweaves oral folklore and area history, providing an ambitious and powerful snapshot of overlooked Americana. 

Beyond the artistry, there is an optimism, a genuine love for people and the past and memories. Even more, there is a grasp to bridge the disconnect between reader and writer, for McClanahan’s stories to bind us closer to one another.

A daring, captivating, darkly funny novel that grapples with uncertainty and loss in a land of violence and superstition, while questioning whether Magical Realism as a genre is capable of confronting the brutal dissonance of a country that awaits the return of the missing while not wholly acknowledging their death.

Pages of Mourning is a stunning achievement, a pioneering and inventive novel that confronts family history, creativity, Magical Realism, and the impact of violence from Mexico’s drug war, by a magnificent new talent in Diego Gerard Morrison.

*10 Favorite Books of the Year (2015) —O, The Oprah Magazine
*Best science fiction and fantasy books of 2015 —The Washington Post
*One of the most anticipated books of 2015  —Dazed & Confused, BuzzFeed

Inez wanders a post-pandemic world, strangely immune to disease, making her living by volunteering as a test subject. She is hired to provide genetic material to a grief-stricken, affluent mother, who lost all four of her daughters within four short weeks. This experimental genetic work is policed by a hazy network of governmental Ethics committees, and threatened by the Knights of Life, religious zealots who raze the rural farms where much of this experimentation is done.

When the mother backs out at the last minute, Inez is left responsible for the product, which in this case is a baby girl, Ani. Inez must protect Ani, who is a scientific breakthrough, keeping her alive, dodging authorities and religious fanatics, and trying to provide Ani with the chilldhood tha Inez never had, which means a stable home and an education.

With a stylish voice, The Only Ones is a time-old story, tender and iconic, about how much we love our children, however they come, as well as a sly commentary on class, politics, and the complexities of reproductive technology.

Mr. Montessori and his family return home from a trip to the beach to discover that their sofa is different. Once dark and contemporary, it’s now antique, green and yellow, and smelling faintly of damp.

Mr. Montessori and his family return home from a trip to the beach to discover that their sofa is different. Once dark and contemporary, it’s now antique, green and yellow, and smelling faintly of damp.

Its appearance and origins are a mystery. A joke? An inverted theft? A break in the fabric of reality? Yes, the police take the “crime” seriously. But what happens next lies outside their expertise. Strange sounds in the night. A half-bathroom toilet with a mind of its own. Odd, fleeting glimpses of something (or someone) in mirrors. The inexplicable vision of Montessori’s neighbor: He swears he saw a burglar. . . .

With her debut novel, Nora Lange has crafted a rambunctious, ambitious, and heart-rending portrait of two idiosyncratic sisters, determined to persevere despite the worst that capitalism and their circumstances has to throw at them.

A tragicomic, intimate American story of two precocious sisters coming of age during the Midwestern farm crisis of the 1980s.