In a restrained narrative that requires patience from readers, Campbell sends his young prospector across the Atlantic to New York, around Cape Horn, and on up north to remote Williams Creek to join the 1860s gold rush. Callum travels through rugged terrain via steamboat, canoe, wagon, mule, foot, and (in a rare passage where the …
Willett’s novel unfolds in Manhattan circa 1986, where 27-year-old bookstore supervisor Eric Summerfield feels himself a failure as a gay man: He dresses unstylishly, stays home watching TV with his cat at night because he finds socializing an ordeal, and is so awkward during sex that he’s been celibate for four years. Bookstore clerk Dale …
Azizi’s impressive debut collection combines careful observations of life’s mundane details with vivid expressions of the range of emotions they evoke. The 45 poems are arranged in three sections titled “before,” “before then,” and “after.” The author, a single mother, dedicates the book to her daughter as her muse and centers several poems around her—as …
Fiona McConnell grew up running a struggling catering business in Los Angeles with her father. As an adult, her big dreams and optimistic attitude have propelled her from kitchens filled with cockroaches to culinary school to a solid career as a pastry cook. Still living in LA, she’s often surrounded by close friends who believe …
Seventeen-year-old Rosa Viviani can no longer do activities such as climb the staircase to her house or walk along the lakeshore with her father since she suffered an accident while participating in Convalor, a racing-themed celebration on her planet Titan, which put her in a hoverchair. One day, she feels a tingling in her arm; …
“Why Maya Had to Die,” reads the envelope that 36-year-old Munna Dhingra finds outside her office door at a university in Shogie, Washington, in 1952. Maya, Munna’s former childhood friend, drowned more than a decade ago. The death and ensuing investigation rocked the small town of Shogie, Washington, back then, but it was determined to …
Adam is in a slump: Once a successful bad-boy author (think Bret Easton Ellis), he floundered when the tides turned against his brand of misogynistic fiction. Adam now teaches at a Los Angeles college, but he may not get tenure due to a scandal; after accusing him of sexual misconduct, his student, Mandy, commits suicide. …
Shambaugh, professor of Asian Studies at George Washington University, writes that America, the dominant power until recently, has always felt a sense of exceptionalism. This conviction that America’s way of doing things had universal appeal seemed affirmed by its spectacular Cold War victory over the USSR, but this simply set the country up for disappointment …
Jake Taylor has just lost his boyfriend of six years, Tom, in a car accident. In addition to being the love of his life, Tom was the primary breadwinner, and Tom’s sister—who blames Jake for Tom’s death—quickly evicts him from Tom’s apartment. The mourning, middle-aged Jake is forced to move back in with his elderly …
Life coach and public speaker Oneto offers a refreshing alternative to the hustle culture that defines much of modern professional life and can often lead to feelings of burnout. While drawing on personal experience and her own coaching insights, she challenges readers to reconsider how ambition is defined, what it means in practice, and how …