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Showing 1 - 19 of 19 items
By Rebecca Solnit, Robert Atwan. 2019
A collection of the year&’s best essays selected by Robert Atwan and guest editor Rebecca Solnit. &“Essays are restless literature,…
trying to find out how things fit together, how we can think about two things at once, how the personal and the public can inform each other, how two overtly dissimilar things share a secret kinship,&” contends Rebecca Solnit in her introduction. From lost languages and extinct species to life-affirming cosmologies and literary myths that offer cold comfort, the personal and the public collide in The Best American Essays 2019. This searching, necessary collection grapples with what has preoccupied us in the past year—sexual politics, race, violence, invasive technologies—and yet, in reading for the book, Solnit also found &“how discovery can be a deep pleasure.&” The Best American Essays 2019 includes Michelle Alexander, Jabari Asim, Alexander Chee, Masha Gessen, Jean Guerrero, Elizabeth Kolbert, Terese Marie Mailhot, Jia Tolentino, and others.By Elizabeth Strout. 2013
&“As our vision becomes more global, our storytelling is stretching in many ways. Stories increasingly change point of view, switch…
location, and sometimes pack as much material as a short novel might,&” writes guest editor Elizabeth Strout. &“It&’s the variety of voices that most indicates the increasing confluence of cultures involved in making us who we are.&” The Best American Short Stories 2013 presents an impressive diversity of writers who dexterously lead us into their corners of the world. In &“Miss Lora,&” Junot Díaz masterfully puts us in the mind of a teenage boy who throws aside his better sense and pursues an intimate affair with a high school teacher. Sheila Kohler tackles innocence and abuse as a child wanders away from her mother, in thrall to a stranger she believes is the &“Magic Man.&” Kirstin Valdez Quade&’s &“Nemecia&” depicts the after-effects of a secret, violent family trauma. Joan Wickersham&’s &“The Tunnel&” is a tragic love story about a mother&’s declining health and her daughter&’s helplessness as she struggles to balance her responsibility to her mother and her own desires. New author Callan Wink&’s &“Breatharians&” unsettles the reader as a farm boy shoulders a grim chore in the wake of his parents&’ estrangement.&“Elizabeth Strout was a wonderful reader, an author who knows well that the sound of one&’s writing is just as important as and indivisible from the content,&” writes series editor Heidi Pitlor. &“Here are twenty compellingly told, powerfully felt stories about urgent matters with profound consequences.&”By Heidi Pitlor. 2014
“The literary ‘Oscars’ features twenty outstanding examples of the best of the best in American short stories.” — Shelf Awareness…
for ReadersThe Best American Short Stories 2014 will be selected by national best-selling author Jennifer Egan, who won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction for A Visit from the Goon Squad, heralded by Time magazine as “a new classic of American fiction.” Egan “possesses a satirist’s eye and a romance novelist’s heart” (New York Times Book Review).By Daniel Handler. 2014
“Lively, eclectic and surprising.” — Minneapolis Star TribuneDaniel Handler, aka Lemony Snicket, author of the enormously popular young adult series A Series of…
Unfortunate Events, takes over as editor for this volume. He will work with the students of 826 Valencia and 826 Michigan writing labs to compile new fiction, nonfiction, poetry, comics, and other category-defying gems, ensuring that “if you need to fall in love with reading again — or just want a reminder that high school students deserve a lot more than their reading lists give them — then this is the book for you” (Bust).By Robert Atwan. 2021
A collection of the year&’s best essays, selected by award-winning journalist and New Yorker staff writer Kathryn Schulz&“The world is abundant…
even in bad times,&” guest editor Kathryn Schulz writes in her introduction, &“it is lush with interestingness, and always, somewhere, offering up consolation or beauty or humor or happiness, or at least the hope of future happiness.&” The essays Schulz selected are a powerful time capsule of 2020, showcasing that even if our lives as we knew them stopped, the beauty to be found in them flourished. From an intimate account of nursing a loved one in the early days of the pandemic, to a masterful portrait of grieving the loss of a husband as the country grieved the loss of George Floyd, this collection brilliantly shapes the grief, hardship, and hope of a singular year.The Best American Essays 2021 includes ELIZABETH ALEXANDER • HILTON ALS • GABRIELLE HAMILTON • RUCHIR JOSHI • PATRICIA LOCKWOOD• CLAIRE MESSUD • WESLEY MORRIS • BETH NGUYEN • JESMYN WARD and othersBy André Aciman, Robert Atwan. 2020
A collection of the year&’s best essays selected by André Aciman, author of the worldwide bestseller Call Me by Your Name. &“An…
essay is the child of uncertainty,&” André Aciman contends in his introduction to The Best American Essays 2020. &“The struggle to write what one hopes is entirely true, and the long incubation every piece of writing requires of a writer who is thinking difficult thoughts, are what ultimately give the writing its depth, its magnitude, its grace.&” The essays Aciman selected center on people facing moments of deep uncertainty, searching for a greater truth. From a Black father&’s confrontation of his son&’s illness, to a divorcée&’s transcendent experience with strangers, to a bartender grieving the tragic loss of a friend, these stories are a master class not just in essay writing but in empathy, artfully imbuing moments of hardship with understanding and that elusive grace. The Best American 2020 Essays includes RABIH ALAMEDDINE • BARBARA EHRENREICH • LESLIE JAMISON JAMAICA KINCAID • ALEX MARZANO-LESNEVICH • A. O. SCOTT • JERALD WALKER • STEPHANIE POWELL WATTS and othersBy Otto Penzler, Louise Penny. 2018
#1 New York Times best-selling author of the Chief Inspector Armand Gamache novels, Louise Penny brings her &“nerve and skill—as…
well as heart&” (Maureen Corrigan, Washington Post) to selecting the best short mystery and crime fiction of the year. Writing short stories takes &“Skill. Discipline. Knowledge of the form while not being formulaic,&” contends Louise Penny in her introduction. &“In a short story there is nowhere to hide. Each must be original, fresh, inspired.&” Originality is just what&’s in store for readers of the twenty clever, creative selections in The Best American Mystery Stories 2018. There&’s no hiding from a Nigerian confidence game, a drug made of dinosaur bones, a bombing at an oil company, a reluctant gunfighter in the Old West, and the many other scams, dangers, and thrills lurking in its suspenseful pages. The Best American Mystery Stories 2018 includes T. C. Boyle, James Lee Burke, Lee Child, Michael Connelly, Charlaine Harris, Andrew Klavan, Martin Limón, Joyce Carol Oates, and others.By Jeanne Walker Harvey. 2011
As a young boy growing up in North Carolina, Romare Bearden listened to his great-grandmother's Cherokee stories and heard the…
whistle of the train that took his people to the North people who wanted to be free. When Romare and his family, faced with Jim Crow laws, boarded that same train, he watched out the window as the world whizzed by. Later he captured those scenes in a famous painting, Watching the Good Trains Go By. Using that painting as inspiration and creating a text influenced by the blues and jazz that Bearden loved, Jeanne Walker Harvey tells the story of Bearden's children by describing the patchwork of daily southern life that Romare saw out the train's window and the story of his arrival in shimmering New York City. Artists and critics today praise Bearden's collages for their visual metaphors honoring his past, African American culture, and the human experience. 2011. For grades K-3By Kathleen V Kudlinski. 2004
Kudlinki evokes the extremes of desert life and the environment's mesmerizing effect on her characters. The plot takes off on…
the strength of the author's portrait of O'Keeffe. A strong sense of O'Keeffe's commitment to art, the desert, and its native inhabitants, and living life her way shines throughBy Zain Bandali, Jani Balakumar. 2023
"Delightful . . . the world needs more ‘mehndi boys!’” —Vivek Shraya, author of The Boy and the Bindi and…
God Loves Hair“A triumph . . . a story I wish I had as a child.” —Danny Ramadan, award-winning author of Salma the Syrian ChefNow in paperback! An artistic, fashion-loving boy unlocks a new talent—and learns to stand up for it—in this chapter book perfect for fans of the Sadiq series and Meet Yasmin!Tehzeeb drew curvy clouds, grand galaxies, squirmy squiggles, and delicate dots. He made charming checkerboards and even perfected paisleys. His practice was finally paying off!The first time Tehzeeb tries mehndi, his passion for the art form blossoms. Soon, he’s creating designs for all his friends and family, and dreams of becoming the most in-demand mehndi artist in town. So Tez is hurt and confused when his favorite uncle tells him mehndi isn’t for boys. His art brings people joy. How could it be wrong? Tehzeeb doesn’t want to disappoint his uncle. But when a crisis before his cousin’s wedding puts his talents to the test, Tehzeeb must find the courage to be his true creative self.Jani Balakumar’s expressive, vibrant illustrations bring Tehzeeb’s designs—and his community—to life. This charming, affirming story by debut author Zain Bandali will have you celebrating creativity, artistic expression, and being unapologetically yourself.Readers can learn more about mehndi at home with activities at the end of the book.By Adam Johnson. 2015
For the past year, a group of high school students met at a publishing house in San Francisco every Monday…
night to read literary magazines, chapbooks, graphic novels, and countless articles. This committee was assisted by a group of students that met in the basement of a robot shop in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Together, and under the guidance of guest editor Adam Johnson, these high schoolers selected the contents of The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2015. The writing in this book is very essential, if not required, like visiting the Louvre if you&’re in Paris. In any case, nothing in this book takes place in Paris, as far as we can recall, but it does feature an elephant hunt, the fall of a reality-TV star, a walk through Ethiopia, and much more of what Johnson calls &“the most important examinations in life.&” The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2015 includes LESLEY NNEKA ARIMAH, DANIEL ALARCÓN, BOX BROWN, REBECCA CURTIS, VICTOR LODATO, CLAUDIA RANKINE, PAUL SALOPEK, PAUL TOUGH, WELLS TOWER and others Adam Johnson, guest editor, teaches creative writing at Stanford University. He is the author of Fortune Smiles, Emporium, Parasites Likes Us, and The Orphan Master&’s Son, which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in fiction. He has received a Whiting Writers&’ Award and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. His work has appeared in Esquire, Harper&’s Magazine, Playboy, GQ, the Paris Review, Granta, Tin House, the New York Times, and The Best American Short Stories.The Best American Series® First, Best, and Best-Selling The Best American series is the premier annual showcase for the country’s…
finest short fiction and nonfiction. Each volume’s series editor selects notable works from hundreds of magazines, journals, and websites. A special guest editor, a leading writer in the field, then chooses the best twenty or so pieces to publish. This unique system has made the Best American series the most respected—and most popular—of its kind. The Best American Mystery Stories 2011 includes Lawrence Block, Brendan DuBois, Loren D. Estleman, Beth Ann Fennelly and Tom Franklin, Ed Gorman, Richard Lange, S. J. Rozan, Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins, and othersBy Hilton Als. 2018
The Pulitzer–Prize winning and Guggenheim-honored Hilton Als curates the best essays from hundreds of magazines, journals, and websites, bringing &“the…
fierce style of street reading and the formal tradition of critical inquiry, reads culture, race, and gender&” (New York Times) to the task. &“The essay, like love, like life, is indefinable, but you know an essay when you see it, and you know a great one when you feel it, because it is concentrated life,&” writes Hilton Als in his introduction. Expertly guided by Als&’s instinct and intellect, The Best American Essays 2018 showcases great essays as well as irresistibly eclectic ones. Go undercover in North Korea, delve into the question of race in the novels of William Faulkner, hang out in the 1970s New York music scene, and take a family road trip cum art pilgrimage. These experiences and more immersive slices of concentrated life await.By Junot Díaz. 2016
&“The literary &‘Oscars&’ features twenty outstanding examples of the best of the best in American short stories.&” —Shelf Awareness for Readers…
The Best American Short Stories 2016 will be selected by Pulitzer Prize winner Junot Díaz. He brings "one of the most distinctive and magnetic voices in contemporary fiction: limber, streetwise, caffeinated and wonderfully eclectic" (Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times) to the collection.By Sheila Heti. 2018
Sheila Heti, author of the acclaimed How a Person Should Be? and coeditor of the best-selling anthology Women in Clothes,…
along with the students of 826 Valencia writing lab will edit this year&’s anthology. Their compilation includes new fiction, nonfiction, poetry, comics, and the category-defying gems that have become one of the hallmarks of this lively collection.By Julie Deaver. 1995
Lissa, seventeen, attends art school in Chicago. Her parents are divorced, and her sister, Marnie, eleven, lives with their mother.…
When her alcoholism worsens, the mother decides she can no longer keep Marnie. Lissa agrees to care for her sister, but naturally Marnie does not want to leave her mother. The two girls eventually establish a workable relationship, and all is well until their mother decides she wants Marnie back. For grades 6-9By Sandra Guzman. 1966
UNA EXTRAORDINARIA SELECCIÓN DE OBRAS ESENCIALES, EN SU MAYORÍA INÉDITAS, QUE CELEBRAN LA FUERZA, EL TALENTO Y LA DIVERSIDAD DE…
LAS MUJERES LATINAS, Y TIENDEN PUENTES QUE NOS CONECTAN LAS UNAS CON LAS OTRAS.Desde la prosa implacable de sor Juana Inés de la Cruz hasta los poderosos cantos de la chamana María Sabina; desde las luchas revolucionarias de Audre Lorde, Lolita Lebrón y Berta Cáceres hasta el activismo de Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez; desde los versos pioneros de Cecilia Vicuña, Maryse Condé, Nancy Morejón y Conceição Evaristo hasta la poesía transgresora de Elizabeth Acevedo, Sonia Guiñansaca y Ada Limón, 140 mujeres de América Latina y el Caribe se juntan en esta colección sin precedentes. Un fascinante universo lírico que celebra las voces nacientes, alentadas y alimentadas por quienes, con sus plumas como machetes, despejaron el camino.«Esta antología fue inspirada para reunirnos y contrarrestar juntas la invisibilización y los mitos que existen en torno a la literatura y el talento de las poderosas Hijas de América Latina, en donde quiera que estemos alzando nuestras voces: de Chicago a São Paulo, de Loíza a Asunción, de Portsmouth a Puerto Príncipe, del Bronx a Buenos Aires, de Chiapas a Los Ángeles, y más allá». —de la introducción por Sandra Guzmán.----AN EXTRAORDINARY SELECTION OF ESSENTIAL WORKS THAT CELEBRATE THE STRENGTH, TALENT, AND DIVERSITY OF LATINE WOMEN, AND BUILD BRIDGES THAT CONNECT US TO ONE ANOTHER.From the relentless prose of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz to the powerful chants of the shaman Maria Sabina; from the revolutionary struggles of Audre Lorde, Lolita Lebrón, and Berta Cáceres to the activism of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez; from the pioneering verses of Cecilia Vicuña, Maryse Condé, Nancy Morejón, and Conceição Evaristo to the transgressive poetry of Elizabeth Acevedo, Sonia Guiñansaca, and Ada Limón, 140 women from Latin America and the Caribbean come together in this unprecedented collection. A fascinating lyrical universe that celebrates the emerging voices, nurtured and encouraged by those who, with their pens as machetes, cleared the path."This anthology has been inspired to disrupt erasure and myths, to gather us, the powerful literary Daughters of Latin America, from Chicago to São Paulo, from Loíza to Asunción, from Portsmouth to Puerto Príncipe, from the Bronx to Buenos Aires, from Chiapas to Los Ángeles, and beyond". —from the introduction by Sandra GuzmánBy Ian Rankin, Simon Reade. 2023
A delicious, and somewhat drunken, dinner party segues into a murder mystery game created by the hostess. However, the parlour…
game may hold clues about the dark truths hiding just under the surface of this genteel gathering...As suspects, clues and red herrings are sifted - it seems one of the guests has an unfair advantage: John Rebus, an ex-detective who used to do this for a living. But is he playing another game, one to which only he knows the rules, that will soon be revealed? As the tension rises, one by one, all their secrets will come out - and there is a shocking discovery that awaits them all...By Ian Rankin, Simon Reade. 2023
A delicious, and somewhat drunken, dinner party segues into a murder mystery game created by the hostess. However, the parlour…
game may hold clues about the dark truths hiding just under the surface of this genteel gathering...As suspects, clues and red herrings are sifted - it seems one of the guests has an unfair advantage: John Rebus, an ex-detective who used to do this for a living. But is he playing another game, one to which only he knows the rules, that will soon be revealed? As the tension rises, one by one, all their secrets will come out - and there is a shocking discovery that awaits them all...