Jesse Ball

From the inimitable mind of award-winning author Jesse Ball, a novel about an unsettlingly familiar society that has renounced the concept of equality—and the devastating consequences of unmitigated power

The old-fashioned struggle for fairness has finally been abandoned. It was a misguided endeavor. The world is divided into two groups, pats and quads. The pats may kill the quads as they like, and do. The quads have no recourse but to continue with their lives.

The Divers’ Game is a thinly veiled description of our society, an extreme case that demonstrates a truth: we must change or our world will collapse.

What is the effect of constant fear on a life, or on a culture? The Divers’ Game explores the consequences of violence through two festivals, and through the dramatic and excruciating examination of a woman’s final moments.

Brilliantly constructed and achingly tender, The Divers’ Game shatters the notion of common decency as the binding agent between individuals, forcing us to consider whether compassion is intrinsic to the human experience. With his signature empathy and ingenuity, Jesse Ball’s latest work solidifies his reputation as one of contemporary fiction’s most mesmerizing talents.

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

Indiana

A Novel

From the inimitable mind of award-winning author Jesse Ball, a novel about an unsettlingly familiar society that has renounced the concept of equality—and the devastating consequences of unmitigated power The old-fashioned struggle for fairness has finally been abandoned. It was a misguided endeavor. The world is divided into two groups, pats and quads. The pats may kill the quads as they like, and do. The quads have no recourse but to continue with their lives. The Divers’ Game is a thinly veiled description of our society, an extreme case that demonstrates a truth: we must change or our world will collapse. What is the effect of constant fear on a life, or on a culture? The Divers’ Game explores the consequences of violence through two festivals, and through the dramatic and excruciating examination of a woman’s final moments. Brilliantly constructed and achingly tender, The Divers’ Game shatters the notion of common decency as the binding agent between individuals, forcing us to consider whether compassion is intrinsic to the human experience. With his signature empathy and ingenuity, Jesse Ball’s latest work solidifies his reputation as one of contemporary fiction’s most mesmerizing talents.

The Divers' Game

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Zora Neale Hurston

Florida

Stories from the Harlem Renaissance

From "one of the greatest writers of our time" (Toni Morrison)--the author of Barracoon and Their Eyes Were Watching God--a collection of remarkable stories, including eight "lost" Harlem Renaissance tales now available to a wide audience for the first time. In May 1925, Barnard student Zora Neale Hurston--the sole black student at the college--was living in New York, "desperately striving for a toe-hold on the world." During this period, she began writing short works that captured the zeitgeist of African American life and transformed her into one of the central figures of the Harlem Renaissance. Nearly a century later, this singular talent is recognized as one of the most influential and revered American artists of the modern period. Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick is an outstanding collection of stories about love and migration, gender and class, racism and sexism that proudly reflect African American folk culture. Brought together for the first time in one volume, they include eight of Hurston's "lost" Harlem stories, which were found in forgotten periodicals and archives. These stories challenge conceptions of Hurston as an author of rural fiction and include gems that flash with her biting, satiric humor, as well as more serious tales reflective of the cultural currents of Hurston's world. All are timeless classics that enrich our understanding and appreciation of this exceptional writer's voice and her contributions to America's literary traditions.

Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick

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Sherman Alexie

Minnesota

The National Book Award-winning author of The Absolutely True Story of a Part-Time Indian offers a new collection of short stories, including the title story, in which a famous writer, who just learned he may have a brain tumor, must decide how to care for his distant, American Indian father who is slowly dying.

War Dances

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Veronica Roth

Has a little bit of sticker residue in corner, see 2nd pic

Tennessee

Stories from the Future

Bestselling Divergent and Carve the Mark author Veronica Roth delivers a stunning collection of novella-length stories set in the future, illustrated with startling black-and-white artwork. No world is like the other. Within this masterful collection, each setting is more strange and wonderful than the last, brimming with new technologies and beings. And yet, for all the advances in these futuristic lands, the people still must confront deeply human problems. In these six stories, Veronica Roth reaches into the unknown and draws forth something startlingly familiar and profoundly beautiful. With tales of friendship and revenge, plus two new stories from the Carve the Mark universe, this collection has something for new and old fans alike. Each story begins with a hope for a better end, but always end with a better understanding of the beginning. With beautifully intricate black-and-white interior illustrations and a uniquely designed package, this is the perfect gift for book lovers.

The End and Other Beginnings

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Wealthy cannibals who dine on the discarded limbs of peculiars. A fork-tongued princess. The origins of the first ymbryne. These are but a few of the truly brilliant stories in Tales of the Peculiar—known to hide information about the peculiar world—first introduced by Ransom Riggs in his Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children series.

Riggs now invites you to share his secrets of peculiar history, with a collection of original stories, as collected and annotated by Millard Nullings, ward of Miss Peregrine and scholar of all things peculiar.

Washington

Gold Foil Edition 

Tales of the Peculiar 

#hardcover #shortstories #shermanalexie #alexie #wardances #nationalbookaward

Louis L'Amour

The essence of L'Amour Timeless appeal can be found in these Unforgettable short stories. Go with men and women who embodied the values we cherish most lamour's Frontier Tails satisfy our login for the inspiration provided for those who struggle against the odds with Justice honor and encourage

Virginia

The Frontier Stories

Presents a collection of tales of danger, hardship, and adventure in the Old West.

The Collected Short Stories of Louis l'Amour, Volume 3

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Elise Bryant

Elizabeth Eulberg

New York

Ten Romantic Tropes, Transformed

Love is in the air in Serendipity, a collection of stories inspired by romantic tropes and edited by #1 New York Times bestselling author Marissa Meyer. The secret admirer. The fake relationship. The matchmaker. From stories of first love, unrequited love, love that surprises, love that’s been there all along, 10 of the brightest and award-winning authors writing YA have taken on some of your favorite romantic tropes, embracing them and turning them on their heads. Readers will fall for this collection of stories that celebrate love at its most humorous, inclusive, heart-expanding, and serendipitous. Contributors include Elise Bryant, Elizabeth Eulberg, Leah Johnson, Anna-Marie McLemore, Marissa Meyer, Sandhya Menon, Julie Murphy, Caleb Roehrig, Sarah Winifred Searle, and Abigail Hing Wen.

Serendipity

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Joe L. Wheeler

Arkansas

Various novelists, some contemporary, contribute to this collection of love stories, including the story of a teenager's first love and a married couple of 27 years who fall in love all over again.

Heart to Heart Stories of Love

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The Mammoth Book of Short Erotic Novels

Lorna Bell

Dwight Flegel

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

Maryland

Uplifting End of Life Stories

Happy Endings

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Jean Chen Ho

California

“A knockout of a book.” —Viet Thanh Nguyen, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sympathizer and The Committed “Fiona and Jane is the book I did not know I was waiting to be written. . . . Read this remarkable work of fiction and feel the world open up around you.” —Angela Flournoy, author of National Book Award finalist The Turner House “Unsentimental, subtly subversive, and always surprising. . . . I love this book.” —Cathy Park Hong, author of Pulitzer Prize finalist Minor Feelings A witty, warm, and irreverent book that traces the lives of two young Taiwanese American women as they navigate friendship, sexuality, identity, and heartbreak over two decades. Best friends since second grade, Fiona Lin and Jane Shen explore the lonely freeways and seedy bars of Los Angeles together through their teenage years, surviving unfulfilling romantic encounters, and carrying with them the scars of their families' tumultuous pasts. Fiona was always destined to leave, her effortless beauty burnished by fierce ambition—qualities that Jane admired and feared in equal measure. When Fiona moves to New York and cares for a sick friend through a breakup with an opportunistic boyfriend, Jane remains in California and grieves her estranged father's sudden death, in the process alienating an overzealous girlfriend. Strained by distance and unintended betrayals, the women float in and out of each other's lives, their friendship both a beacon of home and a reminder of all they've lost. In stories told in alternating voices, Jean Chen Ho's debut collection peels back the layers of female friendship—the intensity, resentment, and boundless love—to probe the beating hearts of young women coming to terms with themselves, and each other, in light of the insecurities and shame that holds them back. Spanning countries and selves, Fiona and Jane is an intimate portrait of a friendship, a deep dive into the universal perplexities of being young and alive, and a bracingly honest account of two Asian women who dare to stake a claim on joy in a changing, contemporary America.

Fiona and Jane

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Beth C. Wiseman

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

Texas





The Amish Kitchen is the Heart of the Home - and the Ideal Setting for Stories of Love and Hope.

Fall in Paradise, Pennsylvania, always brings a brisk change in the weather. This season also ushers in unexpected visitors, new love, and renewed hope for three women.

Fern has a green thumb for growing healing herbs, but longs for love to bloom in her life. Then the next-door neighbor's oldest son, Abram, comes running into Fern's kitchen seeking help for his little sister. The crisis soon leads to a promise of romance--until mistrust threatens to end the growing attraction.

Nearby, Hannah runs her parents' bed and breakfast, Paradise Inn--but her life feels nothing like Paradise. She longs for a man of integrity to enter her life, but never expected him to knock on the front door looking for a room. Will she be able trust Stephen with her future once she discovers his mysterious past

When a storm blows a tree onto Eve's farmhouse, she has little choice but to temporarily move her family into her parents' home. Outside of cooking together in the kitchen, Eve and her mother can't agree on anything. But this may be just the recipe for hope in healing old wounds.

Three Amish stories--each celebrating love, family, and faith--all taking place in a tight-knit community where the kitchen truly is the heart of the home.

Also Includes Reading Group Guide and 45 Old Order Amish Recipes

"Fans of Amish fiction will find triple the enjoyment here thanks to this gathering of novellas in one book." --Publishers Weekly for An Amish Wedding

An Amish Kitchen

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18 best stories by Edgar Allen Poe 

#hardcover #susanminot #shortstories #literaryfiction

And Other Stories

A superb collection of short fiction--her first in thirty years and spanning many geographies--from the critically acclaimed author of Monkeys, Evening, and Thirty Girls. A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK.

A writer dryly catalogs the myriad reasons she cannot write; an artist bicycles through a protest encampment in lower Manhattan and ruminates on an elusive lover; an old woman on her deathbed calls out for a man other than her husband; a hapless fifteen-year-old boy finds himself in sexual peril; two young people in the 1990s fall helplessly in love, then bicker just as helplessly, tortured by jealousy and mistrust. In each of these stories Minot explores the difficult geometry of human relations, the lure of love and physical desire, and the lifelong quest for meaning and connection. Her characters are all searching for truth, in feeling and in action, as societal norms are upended and justice and coherence flounder. Urgent and immediate, precisely observed, deeply felt, and gorgeously written, the stories in Why I Don't Write showcase an author at the top of her form.

Why I Don't Write

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#paperback #erotica #shortstories #romance

Illinois

This collection of eight explicit short stories leaves a lasting impression. The characters are all different, from the young, shy, and virginal to the sassy, sexy, downright outrageous, mature, older woman. They each take a pleasure-filled adventure to satisfy a sexual hunger that craves ultimate fulfillment.

Bedtime Erotica

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Lily King

"With Writers & Lovers and Euphoria, Lily King's books catapulted onto bestseller and best-of-the-year lists across the country, further cementing her reputation as one of the most "brilliant" (NYTBR), "wildly talented" (Chicago Tribune), and beloved authors in contemporary fiction. Now, for the first time, King collects ten of her finest short stories-half published in leading literary magazines and half brand new-opening fresh realms of discovery for fans and new readers alike. Told in the intimate voices of uniquely endearing characters of all ages, these tales explore desire and heartache, loss and discovery, moments of jolting violence and the inexorable tug toward love at all costs. A bookseller's unspoken love for his employee rises to the surface, a neglected teenage boy finds much-needed nurturing from an unlikely pair of college students hired to housesit, a girl's loss of innocence in her summer job becomes a catalyst for strength and confidence, and a proud nonagenarian rages helplessly in his granddaughter's hospital room. Romantic, hopeful, brutally raw, and unsparingly honest, some even slipping slyly into the surreal, these stories are, above all, about King's enduring subject of love"--

Five Tuesdays in Winter (Signed First Edition)

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#hardcover #fiction #botm #relationships #shortstories #fionaandjane 

#shortstories #maevebinchy #binchy #relationships #friendships #family #warmth #humor

From Maeve Binchy's earliest writings to the most recent, her work is filled with wisdom and common sense and also a sharp, often witty voice that is insightful and reaches out to her readers around the world and of all ages. Whether it is one of her best-selling novels or a short story, Maeve shows us that times may have changed, but people often remain the same: they fall in love, sometimes unsuitably; they have hopes and dreams; they have deep, long-standing friends whose secrets are shared; they go on holidays and celebrate new jobs . . .

A Few of the Girls is a glorious collection of the very best of her short story writing, stories that were written over the decades--some published in magazines, others for friends as gifts, many for charity benefits. The stories are all filled with the signature warmth and humor that have always been an essential part of Maeve's appeal.

A Few of the Girls

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Oklahoma

Stories

"In his first collection since the Pulitzer Prize-winning A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain, Robert Olen Butler dazzles anew with his mastery of the short-story form and his true empathy for the denizens of the less-well-explored corners of the human condition. Though his mirthful and appropriately absurd story titles - "Boy Born with Tattoo of Elvis," "Titanic Victim Speaks Through Waterbed," "Woman Uses Glass Eye to Spy on Philandering Husband," and "JFK Secretly Attends Jackie Auction," among others - reflect Butler's genuine fondness for the outsized fancies of tabloid readers' and writers' imaginations, his ambitions are not so lighthearted or ephemeral. Once again he explores the enduring issues of cultural exile, loss, aspiration, and the search for the self. Employing a seamless mixture of high and low culture, of the surreal, the sordid, and the sad, Butler has created a frequently hilarious, always deeply moving, and profoundly American book."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Tabloid Dreams

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Tom Hanks

Heavy Hardcover (2 to 4 lbs)

District of Columbia

Some Stories

The actor Tom Hanks's first work of fiction.

Uncommon Type

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Jocelyn Nicole Johnson

Fiction

A young woman descended from Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings driven from her neighborhood by a white militia. A university professor studying racism by conducting a secret social experiment on his own son. A single mother desperate to buy her first home even as the world hurtles toward catastrophe. Each fighting to survive in America. Tough-minded, vulnerable, and brave, Jocelyn Nicole Johnson’s precisely imagined debut explores burdened inheritances and extraordinary pursuits of belonging. Set in the near future, the eponymous novella, “My Monticello,” tells of a diverse group of Charlottesville neighbors fleeing violent white supremacists. Led by Da’Naisha, a young Black descendant of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, they seek refuge in Jefferson’s historic plantation home in a desperate attempt to outlive the long-foretold racial and environmental unravelling within the nation. In “Control Negro,” hailed by Roxane Gay as “one hell of story,” a university professor devotes himself to the study of racism and the development of ACMs (average American Caucasian males) by clinically observing his own son from birth in order to “painstakingly mark the route of this Black child too, one whom I could prove was so strikingly decent and true that America could not find fault in him unless we as a nation had projected it there.” Johnson’s characters all seek out home as a place and an internal state, whether in the form of a Nigerian widower who immigrates to a meager existence in the city of Alexandria, finding himself adrift; a young mixed-race woman who adopts a new tongue and name to escape the landscapes of rural Virginia and her family; or a single mother who seeks salvation through “Buying a House Ahead of the Apocalypse.” United by these characters’ relentless struggles against reality and fate, My Monticello is a formidable book that bears witness to this country’s legacies and announces the arrival of a wildly original new voice in American fiction.

My Monticello

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#hardcover #footprints #shortstories #compassion #kindness #gratitude #courage #christian 

New Mexico

"When you saw only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you." -From the poem "Footprints," by Margaret Fishback Powers



October 2014 marks the 50th anniversary of the writing of "Footprints." What was inspired by a walk on a beach in 1964 has become a treasured poem that has brought comfort and courage to countless people all over the world.



To mark this outstanding milestone, Margaret Fishback Powers gives us a stunning collection of stories, scripture and memories that reflect the themes of her poem. In honour of the 50th anniversary, Margaret has gathered more than fifty stories-never before published-that celebrate compassion and kindness, courage and strength, hope and faith, and gratitude and friendship. As she explains in the introduction to her book, "Some of these stories are about life-changing experiences, while others tell of small, everyday kindnesses that make a lasting impression. Some stories will bring a tear to the eye; others a smile to the face."



The Footprints Treasury is a beautiful collection of writing and reflections that remind us why this poem continues to inspire people of all ages and backgrounds.

Footprints: 50th Anniversary Treasury

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“A dark wonder. An often harrowing (and in parts, very, very funny) debut, it targets the unfathomable nonsense of relationships, work and modern living with a keen eye, head-spinning wordplay and enough compassion to crush your heart. Buy it for everyone you know." —The Skinny She finds herself single, twenty-nine, partially-employed, and about a half a stone overweight. Roller dexter of eligible friends rattling thin. Thirties breathing down her neck like an inappropriate uncle. She jogs. Looks good in turquoise. Finds herself punctuating gas “better out than in!” patting her stomach like a department store Santa. This is who I am, she thinks. The women in Lara Williams’ debut story collection, A Selfie as Big as the Ritz, navigate the tumultuous interval between early twenties and middle age. In the title story, a relationship implodes against the romantic backdrop of Paris. In “One of Those Life Things,” a young woman struggles to say the right thing at her best friend’s abortion. In “Penguins,” a girlfriend tries to accept her boyfriend’s bizarre sexual fantasy. In “Treats,” a single woman comes to terms with her loneliness. As Williams’ characters attempt to lean in, fall in love, hold together a family, fend off loneliness, and build a meaningful life, we see them alternating between expectation and resignation, giddiness and melancholy, the rollercoaster we all find ourselves on.

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Save this search

Jesse Ball

The Divers' Game

Zora Neale Hurston

Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick

Sherman Alexie

War Dances

Veronica Roth

The End and Other Beginnings

Ransom Riggs

Tales of the Peculiar

Sherman Alexie

War Dances

Louis L'Amour

The Collected Short Stories of Louis l'Amour, Volume 3

Elise Bryant; Elizabeth Eulberg

Serendipity

Joe L. Wheeler

Heart to Heart Stories of Love

Maxim Jakubowski, Michael Hemmington

The Mammoth Book of Short Erotic Novels

Lorna Bell; Dwight Flegel

Happy Endings

Jean Chen Ho

Fiona and Jane

Beth C. Wiseman

An Amish Kitchen

Edgar Allen poe

18 best stories by Edgar Allen Poe

Susan Minot

Why I Don't Write

Lexy Harper

Bedtime Erotica

Lily King

Five Tuesdays in Winter (Signed First Edition)

Jean Chen Ho

Fiona and Jane

Maeve Binchy

A Few of the Girls

Robert Olen Butler

Tabloid Dreams

Tom Hanks

Uncommon Type

Jocelyn Nicole Johnson

My Monticello

Margaret Fishback Powers

Footprints: 50th Anniversary Treasury

Lara Williams

A Selfie As Big As the Ritz